ON THE RHETORIC AND REALITY OF FIGHTING FINANCIAL FRAUD ON WALL STREET

Abstract

This article reveals the contradictions between the political rhetoric and the legal reality of contesting the Wall Street securities frauds that were responsible for the U.S. financial meltdown of 2008. In the process, it contrasts the non-criminal enforcement of the Wall Street fraudsters with the criminal enforcement or prosecution of high-profile defendants involved in major corporate frauds between 2002 and 2007 and with some1000 prosecutions involving the Savings and Loans control frauds of the late 1980s. In light of these empirical comparisons, it suggests that when financial institutions are “too big to fail,” they are also “too big to jail.”