That really sucks. I can understand why you'd feel regret, but obviously the blame is with the monsters who perpetrated the fraud at the higher levels, not with folks like you who were just doing your job.

It's a real shame that the machinery of justice seems to move even slower than usual when well-connected banksters are involved. The FDIC, SEC, CFTC, etc. are notoriously impotent and underfunded, and the financial services lobby cuts across party lines to make strengthening regulations nearly impossible. The Dodd-Frank legislation was just a tiny step forward when leaps and bounds were needed to stop the continued plundering of middle class wealth by bankster thieves.

I haven't worked in the financial services sector since 2004, and even when I did, I worked for the most notoriously risk-averse mutual fund company out there, so I still had some sort of pride in the company, and a feeling that we were doing something valuable. These days, I'm almost inclined to believe the whole financial services industy is a sham. We need banks, but we don't need to be taking our best and brightest young people out of college and paying them six figures to move money around, skimming more than their fair share off the top. At least the auto companies, big agribusinesses, etc. make something, or provide some important service, but it seems like 99% of the financial sector is just about rent seeking and regulatory arbitrage, not reducing economic friction and improving the flow of capital.

Or, to put it more succinctly: