1. misleading the American public into going to a series of costly wars through lies about WMDs -> not punishable
2. Weakening Glass-Stegal and encouraging questionable and irresponsible risk-taking at major banking institutions -> not punishable
3. Fraudulent evaluation of risk-ratings by trusted agencies for the sake of profit leading to worst financial disaster since great depression -> not punishable, actually, rewarded with billions in bail-out by tax payers
4. setting up and running a website to host underground drug trade with bitcoins -> punishable by life-sentence
Not that what Ulbricht did was right or that he shouldn't be punished... but his biggest problem was that his business didn't generate enough profit at the expense of the public. Justice might be blind, but even she can still smell money.
2. Glass Stegal wouldn't have prevented shit. In fact the combination banks Glass Stegal would have prevented--BoA and Chase--were the banks who were strong enough to absorb the shitty failed banks--merill and lehman--that were often just investment banks.
Taking irresponsible risks isn't a crime either.
3) No evidence of fraud. These agencies trusted the financial models and those models didn't work.
Fuckups aren't punished in our society the way intentional law breaking is.
Should be guillotine every founder whose company fails?
Not meaning to go off on a political tangent, but it seems to me like there was a conscious effort not to ask such questions in an official capacity.
Imagine an alternate universe where we had Watergate-style hearings when Pelosi/Reid took over in 2007, or when the Obama administration started in 2009. In some circles, some people wanted that, and I think rightly or wrongly politicians decided it was not worth it. Easy to forget now, but it was certainly in political discourse 6 to 9 years ago.