SEC Investigations of Wrongdoing Slowing?

This article claims the SEC's efforts to prosecute wrongdoing during the 2007-2008 crisis are slowing. The firm cited in the article was a hedge fund actively involved in the creation of "CDOs."

(We recently noted that, incredibly, CDOs are making a comeback.)

Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement officials have decided not to recommend filing civil charges against hedge-fund firm Magnetar Capital LLC, which teamed up with Wall Street firms to create mortgage securities that suffered billions of dollars in losses during the financial crisis, according to people familiar with the situation.

I don't know whether this particular decision to back off makes sense or not, since I'm not really familiar with the specifics of the case. But the more relevant point isn't whether this firm is prosecuted or not, but rather the almost complete lack of any prosecutions of those individuals who clearly broke the law and, for the most part, simply continue not only living as free persons, but, for the most part, continue working in the financial services industry. Oppose this to the thousands who were prosecuted during the Savings & Loan crisis of the late 1980s, early 1990s and you start to get a flavor for the stark contrast between that era and our own. Things were already pretty corrupted then, but how do you account for the complete lack of follow-through today in at least seriously investigating people like Jon Corzine (and I'm not talking about the pending civil suit against him and a few of his cohorts at MF Global; I'm talking about criminal investigations for his having stolen client money for his personal benefit.)

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