Subcrime: pinning the blame for the financial crisis is not easy

This article was published in The Economist 12 November 2009

It is, as one tabloid succinctly put it, “Wall St 1, US 0.” On November 10th the first and so far only executives to face criminal charges relating to the financial crisis were acquitted of lying to investors about the state of the subprime-stuffed hedge funds they ran at Bear Stearns. The funds’ collapse caused losses of $1.6 billion. Had Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin been convicted, they might have spent up to 20 years in prison.

Prosecutors relied on e-mails that, they argued, showed the two panicking behind the scenes while reassuring investors in public. In one, Mr Tannin described the mortgage market as "pretty damn ugly."