We all want to believe that at least some crooks are capable of rehabilitation.

But as I've said before here, that's not the way we think when the accused are corporations, or even corporate officers.

In those cases it seems to be rehabilation first, then punishment.

Last week I mentioned several examples -- MCI and Putnam, Citigroup and Janus. Pay the fine, go to bankruptcy, maybe you don't have to admit to anything at all.

Here's a more egregious example -- Richard Strong of Strong Capital.

Strong agreed to pay $175 million, and founder Richard Strong agreed to stay out of the fund business forever, because he basically sold out his fundholders on behalf of some market-timing crooks with a lot of money.

So what next? He's going to sell out, and since the fund has $33.8 billion under management he'll make out like a bandit -- literally.

The word for this is wrong. This is like Saddam Hussein paying a fine equal to a small portion of the money he looted for Iraq, then going off to Monte Carlo with the rest. When you violate your fiduciary responsibility, it seems to me, then everything you ever made should be subject to forfeiture. You and your children should wind up dirt-poor, with no money, no home, and few prospects for finding more.

That's what we call punishment. That's what we do to drug dealers and other low-life scum. My point is that this is just what those who break the market's trust are -- low-life scum.