The whole government is a Ponzi scheme.
Today, basically, on Wall Street, the big money is made by taking risks.
All one great big lie.
You had a lot of novice investors who got into the market looking for easy money, without any regard to the fundamentals. These stocks were running on fumes.
In today's regulatory environment, it's virtually impossible to violate rules.
The nature of any human being, certainly anyone on Wall Street, is 'the better deal you give the customer, the worse deal it is for you'.