I will be the first to agree that the people who fleeced everyone should have their assetts siezed, and should be doing hard time in the general prison population.
But investing is not a lottery. People do need to take responsibility and do the research, even if it means going though company's dumpsters. And by "research", I mean not just reading the breathless press releases, or listening to an "investment counseller" whose real objective is to collect fees and bonuses by churning portfolios.
I know otherwise intelligent people who always acted on their broker's "Hot tip" of the week without question.
I have even seen this activity on here, where "news" is reported, which turns out to be nothing but a pump-and-dump press release.
The People really have to act as if it is their money (It IS) and be suspicious and vigilant so as not to get caught in the next bubble, which is a nice way of saying "fraud".
Look at these dot.bombs that caught so many people..No business plans, No sales, No products, yet people stampeded to them, waving money.
I think it really started with Netscape. "We give the product away free, and are not sure right now how it will make money", yet everyone climbed on for the ride.
Oh yeah. Glad you mentioned it. The dot-com creators spent money like water on lavish parties and stuff that added zero to the bottom line.
Watching the "cutting edge" dot.bombs TV ads, it was hard to discern just exactly what they were selling. Turns out it was nothing. When they went belly up, their only assets were office furniture.