Marcy Wheeler spots a new survey of 500 American and British bankers which suggests that not only do a significant portion of them feel comfortable with the idea of acting illegally to be successful, but that they believe regulatory bodies such as the SEC and FINRA are incapable of deterring illegal behavior by bankers. Marcy notes:

The two details, together, are more important than in isolation. Not only do a significant proportion of finance execs admit they’d engage in wrongdoing if they wouldn’t get caught, but they also say the SEC and FINRA aren’t going to stop them.

No wonder the banksters keep crashing the economy.

This also gets at Bill Black’s repeated descriptions of culture within Wall Street banks as criminogenic.

Bankers believe that not only is it OK to break the law to make millions, but that there’s nothing regulators are going to do to stop them. Separate from the personal ethical failures and character flaws that this reveals in the banking community, it is clear that the regulatory regime governing the banking and financial sector is a complete joke.