Do you think there could be some semi-legitimate reasons for that behavior, beyond just laziness and cowardice? Cost is a big issue in the justice system. Of course, you should still go after murders (and other serious offenders), even if it's hard and costly.

At least some of the issues in our justice system stem from not having the resources to handle every case fairly. Every criminal case should be fully investigated and tried in court, but the system would break under these conditions.

So you end up with a highly perverse system based on extortion, and heavily biased depending on socioeconomic status. Sometimes it works "too well", other times it doesn't work at all.

BS. European countries have prosecuted banking crime just fine.

Plus, we have Eric Holder on the record for saying he wouldn't go after bank executives because it could "hurt the economy", a reason I rank right up there with "terrorists attacked us for our freedoms."

They could have treated it just as any other type of organized crime. Start at the bottom and go up the chain of command.

There is a long list of "reporting requirements" for financial institutions, and a lot of these is about responsibility. Group heads have to sign for their group, department leads for their department, branch managers for their branch, etc. And the CEO of course is responsible for all the branches / departments.

This makes it possible to make a case out of ignoring warning signs, ignoring possible whistleblowers about illegal conduct, etc.

Usually the Oversight Authority should be able to set at least some rules of these reports to help them set up the right responsibility (and thus incentive) structure (both for prevention and for whistleblowing).

> The main leverage prosecutors have now days is you are going to be financially ruined trying to defend yourself.

which is the very epitome of injustice. Prosecution should be about finding out the truth, and finding out parties responsible for a wrong (and force them to make amends somehow).

Gov can have that power over the rich too. Gov will freeze all their assets, claiming they were gotten illegally, and then even rich people can't pay their lawyers. See Kim Dotcom, for example. It's not that gov can't prosecute the rich; they just don't want to.

Yes, and the DoJ got a lof of DPAs (Deferred Prosecution Agreements) and billions of USD. And they spent that on various programs, that helped some very much in need, but not exactly those who the banks profited off of. And so a lot of people ended up feeling that the government did nothing for their plight.

Sort of. The stock started to go down in the Summer of 2001, but they didn't actually declare bankruptcy until December 2001. The Enron scandal became widesread news in October 2001. So, 9/11 was actually first, at least in terms of the public consciousness. Much of Enron's fraud had happened before then but it wasn't really known. The indictments of the CEO, etc, didn't actually happen until 2004.

Having Arthur Anderson on your resume should automatically result in that resume being thrown in the trash. No exception. I would rather entirely leave that off my resume and say I was homeless grifter than admit working for that firm