If you don't support the current punishments, which evidently don't deter the crime, what's your idea of how they should be strengthened to adequately deter financial crime? I'm not trolling.

I'm not OP, but the obvious question here is whether tougher punishments would be more of a deterrent given that this is something that hasn't been true in many other cases going way back.

In particular, there seems to be substantial evidence that, at least past a certain point (and we can argue whether we are at that point or not, but it's not something self-evident either), what matters more is how likely the punishment is to be applied than how harsh it is, so increasing it further doesn't really do anything productive, just provides a public spectacle.

I disagree. Trevor Milton, the Nikola Motors fraudster CEO will be out after a laughable four years. That's a complete joke.

Do you think he wouldn't do what he had done if the punishment for getting caught would've been worse?

When people see Milton getting locked up for four years, that's a complete joke and in no way proportional to the upside of making out with thousands of lifetimes worth of average honest work. If others who had done similar crimes before him had received more severe punishments he may have chosen not to.