It has always seemed weird to me that the executives were never ousted from their companies. They perpetrated gross negligence and in many (most?) cases outright fraud, and lead to one of the worst financial crashes since the great depression due to outright mismanagement.

Given that, why weren't the folks involved at the top stripped of any compensation during from that time period? Why didn't they claw back bonuses, fire the VPs, SVPs, executives and the board, and ban all of them from ever working in finance again? By not doing so, aren't you simply opening things up to happen again since all the same players are essentially still around?

edit: and when I say banned, I mean banned for their entire natural lives.