<<2 questions:
<<Why aren't they in jail?>>
It's basically a defect in the existing legislation, IMHO. Leaving aside for the moment any possible misdemeanours or felonies that we don't know about, the laws are drafted in ways that make it virtually impossible to prove criminal wrong-doing. This of course is no accident - - the legislators who draft the laws are corrupt, receiving many kinds of benefits, cash included, from the special interests and the corporations. They want to appear tough on corruption to the voters at home and want even more to draft legislation that WON'T piss off those who are greasing their palms. Ideally, the legislation will look and sound like tough anti-corruption law, but the donors won't be too pissed off because they know how badly their corrupt legislators need to LOOK tough to the folks at home, and are happy if they know that the law really has no teeth, something that the folks at home, who aren't lawyers, have no way of knowing, but the corporations and special interests have a very clear understanding of because of the legions of lawyers in their employ.
<<Why did Congress give them the money?>>
Well, if you're talking about the TARP program and the bank bail-outs, I think a lot of the legislators were genuinely panicked and really believed that without a massive bail-out, the country would slide into a massive depression that would rival that of 1933, so they rushed to approve the overall AMOUNT of the bail-out. From there I kind of lost track of the money trail. Who got what, and why, I really don't know. The big boys got a lot of public scrutiny but when the smaller pay-outs went to the smaller institutions, I don't know what the real story was. The question I ought to look into was how was the panic created and stoked? My recollection is that some very highly placed Bush administration officials, formerly in charge of Wall Street firms, were stoking the panic, but I'm sure that by now there are detailed books out on the subject which any public library would have that could give a much better account of the panic than I ever could.
<<If that is what the protesters are there for then I am with them!>>
The protestors are out there for a wide variety of reasons, some of which you would probably agree with, others not. IMHO, although I didn't talk with any of them while I was in New York, from what I've seen and read, a lot of them are there because they don't believe in the electoral system any more. They think that anyone, Republican or Democrat, who is part of the system, is a part of the problem. Although it seems pretty clear to me that if they refuse to participate in the election, either as organizers, activists or voters, that it will be the Democratic Party which will lose the most from their inaction. Overwhelmingly. And that's OK with me. I want to see Obama go down so badly that I don't care anymore who will win.