Should We Sue

Class action suits are brought to bring those companies that hurt the public health and trust into line with the principle of doing no harm to the public.  Over the last 8 years many Wall St. firms have run amok. They have created investment vehicles that the knew or should have known were dangerously risky. The aggressively sold these vehicles and conspired to to have them rated as safe investments. Yes, consumer greed contributed to this meltdown we are now experiencing. Everyone wanted safe, easy money.
This meltdown is analogous to the advertising and misinformation conducted by cigarette companies. Many people were seduced into dangerous smoking habits by assurances of safety and images that made smoking seem like the thing to do. Tobacco companies were then subject to class action suits that resulted in increased warnings about smoking, smoking bans and awards to the injured.
We have all been injured by Wall St. firms who planned to produce recklessly dangerous investment vehicles and advertised them to the public and other institutions. Sales were high, but the results were disastrous.
I don't pretend to have even a small part of the answer to the national dilemma about what to do about Wall St. We certainly do not want to stifle safe investment. We want the risks of any investment to be clearly communicated and well known. I would like to start a discussion about "What to do about Wall St.?".
A focus of the discussion could be "Should we sue?" or it could be the subject of engineering risk in investment. Write to me or comment on this blog. Thanks.