> the whole subprime disaster... no one went to prison and people really should've This is a pretty common sentiment, but nobody can really articulate specific

> the whole subprime disaster... no one went to prison and people really should've This is a pretty common sentiment, but nobody can really articulate specifically who should go to prison and what crime they committed. Being stupid, arrogant, reckless and willfully ignorant with money is not illegal. Just because hundreds of billions was lost does not mean that there's any criminal act. Major companies, and even financial institutions, fail all the time without there being any sort of crime. It's easy to fall into the trap of looking for mustache-twirling villains when you see a broken system. More likely the real culprit are misaligned incentives and dysfunctional institutions. If you actually dig into the details of the subprime crisis, the latter story is the much more plausible one. If you disagree, you have to specify who you think were the criminal masterminds behind the crisis. And more important, you have to show that you can prove criminal action and intent beyond a reasonable doubt. (And don't forget any would-be defendants will have access to the best legal defense teams on the planet.) I've never heard anyone actually present this case instead of just giving vague platitudes about how "the bankers should go to jail". The only real candidate for viable criminal prosecution are the mortgagees themselves. Many fraudulently misrepresented their income, assets or employment on their applications. And it would probably be hard for them to claim that they weren't aware. (In contrast the mortgage brokers could always claim they didn't bother verifying income because they genuinely trusted the applicants. That's obviously BS, but criminal liability is held to a much higher standard.)