Discussion for article #229448
I didn’t even know he left Rolling Stone. Probably a good move for him though to drop out of this new venture. He seems like the type that needs a no holds barred approach for his investigative and often times muckraking style of journalism. Investigative journalism is a dying profession today and yet Taibbi and a few others are still able to do it some measure of justice.
“Racket”? Really? Kind of a dumb name.
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Well, considering that Greenwald is heard of almost never, why would Taibbi stay on to probably be heard of even less and to be associated with Greenwald.
Rolling Stone was a cooler gig.
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Matt Taibbi’s best quote:
The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.
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Last I heard the indispensable Alex Pareene was working as an editor for the same outfit. If things are going south and he’s available I hope some high-profile outfit snaps him up.
You can still find some good taibbi in the east village.
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TPM could win this game if they got Tiabbi and Pareene
Josh? Josh?
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Josh hire Taibbi? Not in a million years. Taibbi is not an Obama worshiper - his honesty here would not be tolerable.
Unless you think these kind of nuggets would go over well with the local cheerleaders
Paul Krugman’s hail-Obama opus is the most stoned performance since Brad Pitt nailed Floyd in True Romance
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AMY GOODMAN: Who was tougher on corporate America, President Obama or President Bush?
MATT TAIBBI: Oh, Bush, hands down. And this is an important point to make, because if you go back to the early 2000s, think about all these high-profile cases: Adelphia, Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, Arthur Andersen. All of these companies were swept up by the Bush Justice Department. And what’s interesting about this is that you can see a progression. If you go back to the savings and loan crisis in the late '80s, which was an enormous fraud problem, but it paled in comparison to the subprime mortgage crisis, we put about 800 people in jail during—in the aftermath of that crisis. You fast-forward 10 or 15 years to the accounting scandals, like Enron and Adelphia and Tyco, we went after the heads of some of those companies. It wasn’t as vigorous as the S&L prosecutions, but we at least did it. At least George Bush recognized the symbolic importance of showing ordinary Americans that justice is blind, right?
Nah. I don’t think that’s going to happen.
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Really. Do they mean racket as in a loud distressing noise or as in a criminal conspiracy? Either way, not good…
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of course the entire world was going belly up, the melt down was causing a work wide depression Obama should have let it happen what the hell,why not get all those bad guys along with everyone else !!!
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And somehow all the Very Important People got their Very Large Bonuses. And not a single Bankster jailed.
Yeah, he’s a real super-hero. For Wall Street.
you never addressed my post issues, just refused to accept my posted facts. would be interesting to have your solution, the one you recommend, jail the bad guys take down the banks?? and??? please post a fact based solution. I have to laugh at myself over this caveat, when the banks go belly up and everyone loses their investment and money kinda like the 1930’s where we have runs on banks? proceed Unfading green
It’s possible to jail the bad guys without “taking down the banks”.
See: Savings and Loan Crisis
Hundreds of Wall Street Execs Went to Prison During the Last Fraud-Fueled Bank Crisis
Joshua Holland: To date, a few loan officers — small fish — have been convicted of various offenses related to the financial crash. But none of the big bankers have faced any charges. And it’s not that the government has been losing cases in the courts. There’s simply been no concerted effort to prosecute these guys. Can you contrast that with what happened during the savings and loan scandal of the 1980s, and also give us your sense of why this has been the case?
William Black: Sure. The savings and loan debacle was one-seventieth the size of the current crisis, both in terms of losses and the amount of fraud. In that crisis, the savings and loan regulators made over 30,000 criminal referrals, and this produced over 1,000 felony convictions in cases designated as “major” by the Department of Justice. But even that understates the degree of prioritization, because we, the regulators, worked very closely with the FBI and the Justice Department to create a list of the top 100 — the 100 worst fraud schemes. They involved roughly 300 savings and loans and 600 individuals, and virtually all of those people were prosecuted. We had a 90 percent conviction rate, which is the greatest success against elite white-collar crime (in terms of prosecution) in history.
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This is the problem with Taibbi. His contention that Bush was instrumental in prosecuting Enron is beyond wrong and foolish, it’s disgusting.
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Why didn’t Taibbi realize upfront that anyone who’d hire Greenwald is interested in money and publicity, not journalism?
Funny, yesterday I ran a quick search to see how Taibbi was coming along with his new project…First Look’s site seem to indicate things were progressing swimmingly. Guess not. Here’s hoping Matt lands on his feet (with the entire sordid story).
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People act like there were two options in 2008–let the banks fail or bail them out. The reality is that there were a lot of things they could have done in between. At the very minimum, the government could have attached some strings to the money they provided. The spectacle of banks paying bonuses out of the TARP funds was sickening. There could also have been an effort made to punish the individuals who profited from violating laws regarding fraud, etc. within the institutions rather than fining the corporate bodies. Without individual accountability, there is no disincentive for the actual people from pulling similar capers in the future. Another approach that could have been taken would have been to wind down some of the really troubled banks rather than prop them up. Banks could have been temporarily nationalized & broken down into pieces, the hopelessly zombified units could have been absorbed by the government/Fed and eliminated, while those that just needed some help could’ve been restored to solvency and sold back to the private sector in a resuscitated state. Instead, we got a real giveaway to the same people who caused damage to the world economy and to individual homeowners. What Obama did was what Bush was going to do, but that’s not an excuse for not doing better.
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Alex Pareene works for Salon.
you compare the magnatude of the S&L fraud with the pending meltdown of morgage companies, banks, pension plans and the work wide crisis? Individual investors and passbook accounts. runs on banks??? oh there were strings attached the posters are being disingenious…why there cannot be an honest policy discussion is our basic problem. once again unfading green map out your solution instead of just protesting the few arrests.one thing is for certian none of us know the whole story you think that woud trigger an original thought!
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That’s what I thought too.