Spitzer got Wall Street crooks to cough up $1.4 billion in fines to "punish" them.
I will be the first to agree that the people who fleeced everyone should have their assetts siezed, and should be doing hard time in the general prison population.
But investing is not a lottery. People do need to take responsibility and do the research, even if it means going though company's dumpsters. And by "research", I mean not just reading the breathless press releases, or listening to an "investment counseller" whose real objective is to collect fees and bonuses by churning portfolios.
I know otherwise intelligent people who always acted on their broker's "Hot tip" of the week without question.
I have even seen this activity on here, where "news" is reported, which turns out to be nothing but a pump-and-dump press release.
The People really have to act as if it is their money (It IS) and be suspicious and vigilant so as not to get caught in the next bubble, which is a nice way of saying "fraud".
Look at these dot.bombs that caught so many people..No business plans, No sales, No products, yet people stampeded to them, waving money.
I think it really started with Netscape. "We give the product away free, and are not sure right now how it will make money", yet everyone climbed on for the ride.
Actually, there were several people doing this. Crudele seems to be saying "I told you so", but he fails to mention one instance where he was speaking with any specific knowledge on the subject. Like many, he probably took a look at P/E's approaching 200 and thought things looked a little fishy.
Yes, corrupt firms and their analysts bilked billions, trillions even from investors. However, anyone who invested thinking we were in a "new paradigm", where a company didn't need to earn money to be valuable was just an idiot. Remember, with few exceptions (Enron the most notable), the books weren't cooked; you could see plain as day that a company was sucking wind.
Got that right!