On June 25, Kellogg’s issued a “voluntary recall” of 28 million boxes of its breakfast cereals, including Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, Corn Pops, and Honey Smacks. The company revealed it had detected an “uncharacteristic off-flavor and smell coming from the liner in the package” of the suspect cereal and warned of “possible temporary symptoms, including nausea and diarrhea” from eating it.

Before we plunge our spoon into this cereal bowl of trouble, let’s ponder the enormity of the recall. A box of cereal contains about 12 servings. That means Kellogg’s recalled enough cereal to serve breakfast to 336 million people — sufficient for every man, woman, and child in the United States, with more than enough left over for every single Mexico City resident.

My brain can barely fathom the enormity; I’m picturing a towering sugar-glazed mountain, a crazy-colored Everest of Froot Loops and Apple Jacks.

Now, on one level, the food-safety system worked in this case. A Kellogg’s spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that the company had received complaints “from about 20 people, including five who reported nausea and vomiting,” and then quickly declared the recall. In other words, a gigantic food corporation discovers a product problem and quickly does all it can to remove as much of that product as possible from the market. System vindicated!

But dig in a little deeper, and you’ll find a limp, corporate-friendly food-safety system on display.money, higher-ups at the bank actively looked the other way in order to score bigger profits, and the U.S. government is about to let everyone involved get off scott free. The bank will not be indicted, because it is official government policy not to prosecute megabanks. From Smith’s story:

No big U.S. bank . . . has ever been indicted for violating the Bank Secrecy Act or any other federal law. Instead, the Justice Department settles criminal charges by using deferred-prosecution agreements, in which a bank pays a fine and promises not to break the law again . . . . Large banks are protected from indictments by a variant of the too-big-to-fail theory. Indicting a big bank could trigger a mad dash by investors to dump shares and cause panic in financial markets.

Wachovia was acquired by Wells Fargo in late 2008. The bank’s penalty for laundering over $380 billion in drug money is going to be a promise not to ever do it again, and a $160 million fine. The fine is so small that Wachovia will almost certainly turn a profit on its drug financing business after legal costs and penalties are taken into account.