Several months ago, a Ponzi scheme fell to pieces and billionaire investment manager Bernard Madoff was revealed as a con man. He has been on trial, and found guilty. And today he was sentenced to 150 years prison. Clearly, he’s not going to live that long. And, there is a good chance the 71 year old wouldn’t have made it the 12 years his lawyer asked for. However, the judge decided that the man behind one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history needed to serve as an example to the rest of the financial sector.

Sort of.

The bottom line is that there are plenty of other crooks out there in the financial world. While they may not be instigating Ponzi schemes, they are — quite likely — involved in other sneaky and underhanded practices. But most financial sector workers and companies have emerged largely unscathed. Which means that Bernie Madoff pretty much represents the entirety of justice being served to the financial sector. Perhaps that is why he got such a long sentance. Perhaps he is atoning for the sins of an entire industry that went crazy with greed the last 10 - 15 years.