Our Legal System Supports our Crony Capitalism

What's wrong with this picture:

One the one hand we have individual citizens who steal things or money from other individual citizens.   Laws vary from state to state, but here in Indiana for example, theft can get you anywhere between 6 months to 8 years in prison depending on what was stolen and how much of it was stolen etc.   The average American will earn about $1.6 million over their lifetime, and so an individual thief may essentially lose up to 10% of their total lifetime earnings due to loss of income in jail (assuming the average person lives to be about 78 years old).

Now take not a person, but a large bank.   A bank that has  'stolen' millions of dollars through fraudulent and just outright deceitful practices.  This action just isn't one theft like someone stealing a painting or a car: it literally ruins entire families: hundreds or thousands of families across the nation.  Yet, this bank, because of the power granted to them in our supposedly capitalist system, means they get a slap on the wrist of $175M.  A bank like Wells Fargo has aprox. $80 Billion in gross income in one year.  Therefore, Wells Fargo's slap on the wrist equates to about 0.2% of it's annual income.  But wait, that not a good comparison to what Wells Fargo can earn and finance over its life.   If we assumed Wells Fargo's 'life' was 78 years (just like a typical American), Wells Fargo's lifetime earnings would be over $6 Trillion, which makes $175M look like toilet paper.  And Wells can earn exactly the same amount of money at age 78 as at age 20, because unlike individual people, banks never age and never have to worry about things like  healthcare, social security, etc.

Let's recap.  One person loses years of their livelihood and a signification chunk of lifetime earnings and all the family support that could have been provided during that time, all for stealing something as mundane as a car.

One bank, loses less than 1/5 of 1% of it's annual earnings for destroying hundreds or thousands of families across the nation.

Think about that.