How come I don't see Bernanke or Greenspan on the list? It was first Greenspan's bubble-policy that started the whole housing mess, followed by Bernanke's incompetence to realize what others had foreseen for years. Bernanke still engages in a ponzi scheme in plain sight. He openly claims it's for the good of the American public, but only ones who directly benefited from his slash and burn campaign are the Wall street miscreants who started the financial debacle. If that's not a grand larceny, I don't know what is.
Madoff was the fall guy, to appease the public a bit, his downfall took the heat off the Villians you ask about.
Only half of the people invested with madoff lost money unlike some of the villians in the article. Maybe a Ponzi has merits.