You also have to realize what sort of lending put the banks under. Using their influence in the banks they directed the loan officers to make out unsecured loans to their own companies. That was a big part of the banks all failing simultaneously.
To clarify, executives at Bank created a Holding Company. Bank lent Holding Company $100. Bank then sold Holding Company Bank stock for $100, thereby manufacturing $100 in "equity". This "equity" makes Bank's debt/equity, and other equity-based leverage ratios, look rosier than they are.
I recall a similar shit show going down around Karzai's cronies in Afghanistan.
Fraud wasn't the initial spark, but it was what turned the American 2008 housing market slump from a self contained bust into a global financial crisis.
The idea that fraud lead a US housing bubble to cause a real estate bubble in the UK and Spain, and a banking crisis in Iceland and Ireland is just not correct.
I'd dispute that. Often it was a smart and cynical decision by lenders to make bad loans, take the bonuses and commissions and leave the government and others to clean up the mess. If you were to pin the blame on one group I'd say it was mostly the governments fault for under regulating this stuff.
So yes, if Tesla sold a car full of explosives that was about to explode as soon as the passenger got in -- then indeed they should be prosecuted. Thankfully the technology industry typically does not act in such manner. Their "crime" is more over-enthusiasm and pushing the envelope of privacy violations.
See "Fabulous Fab": http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/08/01/gold... See Goldman Synthetic CDOs: http://www.businessinsider.com/a-timeline-of-goldmans-abacus...
It is if that bad business decision is the decision to commit fraud.
Because putting money in the bank is exactly like investing in speculative high-risk tech stocks.
Not 1999, but during the 2006-08 iffy loans period, Alayne Fleischmann went whistle blower on some of the fraudsters at JP Morgan. None went to prison (or I think lost their bonuses). JP Morgan gave $9bn of it's shareholders money to the US Govt as settlement instead.
On a different note, nobody bailed out the dot coms.