K, a whistle-blower at even a large bank would be running up against all of the rest of the org chart above them who've got some vested interest in NOT changing the bank's procedures or policies.

Follow the money, follow the Power and follow the people scared of that knowledge getting out to the public. Survival instinct is strong amongst humans...

I see a conflict of interest there, too, as the banks were still in business to make profits and they were then faced with new government regulations which, in the end, made little sense but did impact their market, so their reactions were, imnsho, predictable, even back then.

Then the government first beats them up for doing what anyone would expect them to do, then the MSM drains the logic from the process and makes the whole thing an ethical/moral issue, so facts or logic become irrelevant, as happens in nearly ALL situations (Think Ferguson, MO, for a recent example... do you burn your own city's resources down because you disagree with a Grand Jury's decision? If Ferguson thinks that's ok, they should just do away with the GJ process, at least locally, right?... morons.)

Your statement that the banks essentially screwed over mortgagees who'd never missed a payment implies to me that such decisions were made completely arbitrarily and had nothing to do with new or changing government regulations or demands of the time. Is that what you're implying?

As for pensioners, are you saying that it is the responsibility of anyone and everyone in the US who DOES pay taxes to be the Insurer of Last Resort for anyone and everyone whose pension might be at risk any time in the future for any reason? I agree with Hiraghm, below... I believe that one of the biggest mistakes anyone made was to proceed with Bailouts. "Too big to fail" just means that the size of "too big" will be adjusted in the future to match whatever political wind is blowing at the time.

I don't think AR would have supported that kind of policy; do you?