Smooching Wall Street

When the Justice Department recently closed its criminal investigation of Goldman Sachs, it became all but certain that no major American banks or their top executives would ever face criminal charges for their role in the financial crisis.…

There may be more civil fraud suits related to the financial crisis, producing settlements and fines. But to date, those cases have rarely named top executives and the banks have rarely admitted wrongdoing. And the fines, even those in the hundreds of millions of dollars, have been small compared with bank profits and banker bonuses.

New York Times