(1) Bankers (rich people) lobby to have Glass–Steagall taken out back and shot in the head.
(2) Banks go nuts with financial wizardry leading to a housing bubble.
(3) Bubble bursts which ends up ruining the lives of millions, mostly lower and middle class folk. Nation enters into the worst recession since the Great One.
(4) Banks are bailed out with taxpayer money because banks have somehow become "too big to fail".
(5) Some regulations placed belatedly and half-heartedly on banks because of (1-4)
(6) Hardly anyone rich loses their shirt and hardly anyone is locked up† and some make out like bandits.
(7) Wall Street salaries and bonuses through the roof.
(8) Gov Regulations (along with Fed quantitative easing – the Fed is kind of a collection of banks, no?) exacerbate income and wealth inequality. Where did the Secretary of the Treasury at the time of the crisis, Hank Paulson, work beforehand?‡
(9) Banking policy "expert" Karen Petrou says “I’m not blaming the banks”
(0) In the words of Ace Ventura, “Allllrighty then!”
† https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-07-26/why-no-on...
‡ “Before becoming Treasury Secretary, he was required to liquidate all of his stock holdings in Goldman Sachs, valued at over $600 million in 2006, in order to comply with conflict-of-interest regulations. Because of a tax provision passed under President George H.W. Bush, Paulson was not subject to capital gains tax. This saved him between $36 and $50 million in taxes.”