The point would be to determine what it would take to prevent such a problem in the future. That is very simple in principal but very difficult in practice. It is to hold the people who make these decisions personally responsible. - not the companies. If individuals feared personal consequences this kind of behavior would stop. Don't hold your breath.

Confiscating the personal fortunes of the people responsible for this attrocity and paying it toward the national debt would certainly be a good start.

I'm curious as to how that could be done. I am in favor of finding a way to take back what these guys have gotten for ruining their companies and our economy, but am not sure of exactly what law would cover it. Got any ideas?

If we do not currently have a law on the books, then new laws would have to be passed. That means that none of the current crowd could be convicted.

I'm not that type of lawyer by any stretch of the imagination, but shareholder derivative suits could theoretically at least go after CEOs and other officers who looted their companies into bankruptcy.

Given the slowdown in regular corporate law, I wouldn't be surprised at all if many of those extremely bright, suddenly idle corporate attorneys aren't looking into just this right now.

Shareholder derivative suits, yes by way of misfeasance and breach of fiduciary duty and self dealing and all the rest. And that's just on the civil side.

The SEC has been nothing but a paper tiger when it comes to enforcing rules on insider trading and market manipulation. How many times have we heard of a disposition involving some Wall Street miscreant where "the defendant did not acknowledge any guilt" but agreed to pay a piddling fine, etc?

Say what you want about Spitzer's private peccadilloes. As an A.G. he had Wall Street thinking twice before breaking the law.

I would love to see criminal prosecution. It seems to me that AIG and it's insurance policies would provide fertile ground. Since they sold policies that they could never pay claims on, I would think the fraud charge would be easy to prove.

I think the mortgage brokers who encouraged people to falsify their documents should be liable to accomplice to fraud. I know someone who paid for an appraisal of his home that put it $200k higher than it's actual value. Seems like both the appraiser and the home owner should go to jail.