Any way to limit profits from economically unsound practices?

Perhaps what bothers me most about much of the current economic difficulties is that a great many people seem to have pursued financial activities that they should have known were - um - quite risky, because they were able to pull out their profits and shift the risks to others. So you have a great many insiders who profited tremendously from actions that essentially ran aspects of the economy into the ground.

Am I entirely off the mark here? Are there large numbers of financial wizards who are losing their shirts over recent developments? Or is it more along the lines that they are just going to have to figure out how to live without the tens of millions of dollars of bonuses and compensation they have enjoyed in previous years - at least until they discover a new way to run an end-around the rest of us?

In the event of corporate failure, what ought to be the extent of personal liability on behalf of those who profited from corporate actions? I realize putting the various directors in the poorhouse would be a drop in the bucket compared to the costs they have imposed on the rest of society, but I, for one, would sure get some small amount of pleasure out of seeing some fatcats wearing barrels…

Or at least a good old fashioned societal shunning. But instead, it seems that the reward for running one company/institution into the ground is to be hired by another…

I suspect somewhat that the key issue is that everyone knew of one guy who would be willing to take on the risk in the end. AKA the US Government AKA the taxpayer

Link amount stolen to the punishment. Currently, the hold-up man serves more and harder time than the corporate thief who fleeces widows and orphans for millions.

I forget who I was listening to a couple of months back, but someone suggested that a lot of the problem of gas price speculation would be solved if people were forced to use “real money” to back their investments. He claimed that people were buying shares somehow at rates of maybe 10% upfront, which allowed them to buy 10x what they could really afford, and it most definitely needed to be regulated to prohibit that. Is that all nonsense? Because if it isn’t, it does seem like a way to artificially drive up things real fast, shifting the burden to others.