It appears that the New York Times is cribbing off Matt Taibbi. I think that’s a good thing, although Taibbi might want some attribution. Either way, we’re still screwed.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Well, we knew there was no honor among thieves, but neither does there seem to be memory:
http://exiledonline.com/feature-new-york-times-hack-eats-horse-sperm-pie/
Brought back memories. I loved that paper. Not the NYT…
All that deregulation and change in laws have made it impossible to procecute these crooks. The problem was it was legal.
Nobody cared when the money was flowing and the credit was easy.
I sound like a broken record, but Bill CLinton has a lot to answer for in the two laws he signed. He enabled too big to fail and shadow banking.
I’ve read some really good books about the financial sector. Taibbe is shallow and doesn’t know enough about Wall Street to write about it. I know he’s popular, but he doesn’t know the history of things or understand how things are done in investment banks.
Wall Street really did it this time and the Repubs want to defund the finreg bill. It’s almost as if the Republicans are an enemy of the people.
Thanks for the post.
The “bible” about how things worked on Wall Street is Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis. It is very helpful in understanding the attitude that created the 2008 meltdown.
Taibbi knows enough to be dangerous(to Wall Street). But that misses the point as to why people like him. It’s his way of writing that makes him popular. And his skewering of the elite, pompous assholes.
That’s what I don’t like about him. I don’t want the emotional writing. The facts are enough.
Wall Street has dismissed him as a crank.
Wall Street would of course dismiss him as a crank. I remember a number of reports on derivatives back in 2008 that made the point that one needed a degree in advanced math in order to work with them, either as a broker or a regulator. The problem became that the only people who had enough knowledge to regulate them were also people who had been through the industry and shared its world view.
A similar thing I recall happened with the oil spill in the Gulf, though with a lot of differences, too. There’s this big mess, and everyone and his brother is shouting that the government should take over the process of cleanup and just stop the thing. The problem was, a few reports noted, that nobody in the government had the technical expertise required for the task, let alone the equipment. It was only industry people who did.
Taibbi does not report as an insider. Calling the executors of the 2008 crisis crooks may not be legally correct, but he’s making a point that I imagine is obvious. A small number of people got very wealthy in a process that ruined millions financially. We can call it capitalism, or we can call it theft, but the morality of it is the same.
I know that you are not suggesting that just because something is legal that it is either OK or good. My point is that there can be a value in an outsider’s perspective on something even if that person doesn’t understand the technical aspects of the thing examined entirely.
You and Calvin brighten my life. Such a good answer. My problem with Taibbe began when he stated that Rubin’s (Citigroup) son worked for Obama. Nope, he had the wrong Rubin. When confronted with this he got all whiney.
The point is, he didn’t fact check.
I despise the investment banks. I also despise the governtment people who took away the ability to bring the cheaters to court.
People who lost money on their 401ks know what’s what.
Even the guys doing the CDOs didn’t understand them THe complexity was enormous. It was greed.
The emotional stuff clouds the issue of how to fix this. Reagan used the same emotional tactics for different reasons.
The saying write what you know is a good one.
I have to say I agree about Taibbi. I feel like he enjoys getting people worked up.
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Building personal wealth through use of subprime loans … difficult to prosecute as Delusion is an iron-clad defense.
“The savings-and-loan debacle of the 1980s as perhaps the high-water mark in prosecuting executives after a broad financial scandal. When the government loosened the rules for owning a thrift, the industry was taken over by aggressive entrepreneurs, far too many of whom made self-dealing loans using savings-and-loan deposits as their own personal piggy banks.
In time, nearly 1,000 savings and loans — a third of the industry — collapsed, costing the government billions. The federal government threw enormous resources at those investigations. There were a dozen or more Justice Department task forces. Over 1,000 F.B.I. agents were involved. The government attitude was that it would do whatever it took to bring crooked bank executives to justice.
There were over 1,000 felony convictions in major cases involving executives of the thrifts.
The executives howled that they were being unfairly persecuted, but the cases against them were often rooted in a simple concept: theft.”
Fair to say: “The American Dream” is a delusion, unless you are a white collar thief.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."The eighties also saw the rise and rise of tax benefits for LL(P,C), who formed and failed at such an alarming rate they began to look like an amorphous writhing mass. Especially in the energy field.
But why bother with going back that far when the average American’s notions of history stop at last week?
There was something before this week? Wait, explain.
Honestly I never expected any of those people to get in trouble… 🙁