Raj's conviction , will change nothing, is a waste of money and effort and is completely divorced from the  sub prime / CDO financial crisis. With respect to that  I agree with Des and others who complain about the fact no legal action has been taken against anyone- despite acknowledging Gillian Tett's (FT) theory that lhe brilliant people on Wall Street particularly use their billiance to find a way to just avoid acting illegally. And also despite  knowing one very successful banker who emulated Dan K  by tearing up her Democratic membership card and complaining to the media and her acquaintenances that Obama is predjudiced against the financial community.

With respect to Raj,his sort  "insider trading" is so ubiquitous that attempting to prosecute offenders is like prosecuting  drivers who break the speed limit

Two cases.

Leaks of the sort of inside information that will cause a one day , or one month blib in a stock are impossible to eliminate and just be considered as insepearable from financial markets.At least a couple of months  before the end of a reporting period multitudes of people know what the earnings will be based on forecasts The actual results finally reported by the accountants are stale news but even so some of the horde of insiders who sold or bought in advance make money. (The underlying value of the enterprise won't have been affected ,investors who bought before the news got what they thought they were buying.)

As for insider trading tied to a significant event: a contract won or lost for example, it's seldom a knife edge sort of event. There are signals which can be read by insiders , they tell their wives and  brother in laws, etc Who call their brokers. FWIW in this case, investors who bought before the news aren't getting what they thought but because they themselves took the risk 

Insider trading is inseperable from financial markets and should be considered a victimless crimes. But there are much more serious offences which ought to be prosecuted..

.As I've maundered on endlessly here , Adam Smith's basic insight was valid- that a desire to promote the common good only results in the tragedy of the commons whereas greed for personal gain results in the internal combustion engine.But  a corollary is that greed not only motivates people to work hard and smart for themselves but also to do whatever else will help them succeed: hire illegal aliens off the books,( below minimum wage and with no withholdings) , use child labor, bar  the fire escapes, sell poisonous meat,fix prices,  forment a war ,equipping  both parties, bribe politicians..It's just common sense  that people , motivated  by self interest to self sacrifice and tremendous efforts,won't stop abruptly rather than break a law..

The legal effort devoted to prosecuting  Rajaratnam should have beenhad been  devoted to non financial crimes. Certainly not the top of the list but it's interesting to speculate what would be the effect of seriously prosecuting employers of illegal aliens. It's a cliche that the US appetite for illegal drugs creates the Mexican drug wars. Americans- corporations or individuals (nannies anyone?)- create the Mexican illegal immigration.