" The circular logic IMHO is in thinking that the market can prevent this by itself" It's not circular logic because nobody really thinks that the market will

" The circular logic IMHO is in thinking that the market can prevent this by itself" It's not circular logic because nobody really thinks that the market will stop corruption by itself. And FYI if regulations and laws were not in place, forget about 'market correction', there would be no market to begin with. See: dysfunctional, corrupt states. They barely have 'markets'. "but do you feel if regulatory bodies were given more power to execute on already existing laws" I don't know. It might not be a matter of law or even policy, but failure of those in the office. Maybe they were understaffed, or had the wrong incentives. Banks have tons of oversight committees and auditors, and they call kind of failed as well. Major funds buying huge bundled up mortgages were maybe a little lazy in not doing diligence, but that's a 'market' thing not a regulatory thing. It was a lot of big and small failures - market and regulatory, that caused 2008. If everyone is cheating it's not going to work.