It's always a good day when you notice your PhD research overlapping with what's going on in the news. PhD research might actually matter! This happened to me when I was listening to a recent Fresh Air interview with NY Times reporter Louise Story about why the United States has prosecuted so few people involved in the financial crisis. A couple points caught my attention: Regulatory agencies, especially the SEC, are understaffed. (not really news to most people interested in this stuff) Since 2008 the Justice Department has officially allowed financial companies to defer prosecutions if they conduct their own investigation into alleged wrongdoing. (that's more like it) The combined effect of understaffing and essentially outsourcing investigations to financial companies is that regulators are: Losing the capacity to do their own investigations of financial institutions Not going to even be able to critically evaluate the investigations...