Initially, Bernard Madoff made money honestly by trading in penny increments when everyone else was trading 1/8 and 1/16. When the exchanges decimalized, he co

Initially, Bernard Madoff made money honestly by trading in penny increments when everyone else was trading 1/8 and 1/16. When the exchanges decimalized, he couldn't make money that way anymore, and switched to his Ponzi. In our society, most of our leaders have the same criminally insane personality type as Bernard Madoff. From their point of view, he was "one of us". When some low-ranking SEC investigators got suspicious, Bernard Madoff was able to use his influence to quash the investigation. However, most of them don't do something flagrantly illegal like Bernard Madoff. They can ruin a business while deflecting blame to other people, but not something flagrantly illegal where they might get caught. They're "too big to jail".