You're making assumptions and misrepresenting Stigletz argument. Stigletz isn't suggested we should punish failure with prison. He is saying the penalties for corporate criminals need to be enough to discourage deceptive practices that encourage corporations to break the law because that's what's best for business:
"the financial industry was engaged in predatory lending practices, deceptive practices. They were optimizing not on producing mortgages that were good for the American families but in maximizing fees."
"Meanwhile, stock-based compensation created further skewed incentives by encouraging executives to pursue short-term stock gains at the expense of long-term corporate sustainablity, Stiglitz said, and in some cases encouraged them to deceive their own shareholders."
We're not talking about punishing failure, we're talking about punishing crime, note the word deception, in other words fraud or lying.
"the financial industry was engaged in predatory lending practices, deceptive practices. They were optimizing not on producing mortgages that were good for the American families but in maximizing fees." "Meanwhile, stock-based compensation created further skewed incentives by encouraging executives to pursue short-term stock gains at the expense of long-term corporate sustainablity, Stiglitz said, and in some cases encouraged them to deceive their own shareholders."
We're not talking about punishing failure, we're talking about punishing crime, note the word deception, in other words fraud or lying.