I'd suggest you read Bair's "Bull by the Horns". Bair, a Bush-appointed Republican who ran the FDIC during the 2008 crisis, made it pretty clear that regulation had become ineffective in a number of important ways. The last chapter is a call for significant strengthening of US financial regulation.
I'd say the "cost of doing business" thing cuts against your argument, though. I read that as the regulations (or the regulators) not being strong enough to keep bad actors in check.
You may very well be correct, but I read the 'cost of doing business' story as meaning that everyone is constantly getting prosecuted, and there is no way of escaping it, so you might as well just pay out the fine, and raise you prices, as all your competitors do. It doesn't really matter that you have to pay the fines if everyone else in your industry has to do the same, because it is not a competitive disadvantage.
I'd say the "cost of doing business" thing cuts against your argument, though. I read that as the regulations (or the regulators) not being strong enough to keep bad actors in check.