Comments on: The Great American Bubble Machine

By: The Gold Standard » Europe, Goldman Sachs and the problem of big banks

The Gold Standard » Europe, Goldman Sachs and the problem of big banks — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 03:17:18 +0000

[...] Matt Taibbi (I had commented on it before) in ‘Rolling Stone’. You can find the piece here now. The discussion continues, however, in his blog, well beyond this piece. Even Joe Wiesenthal [...]

By: doctorgonzo

doctorgonzo — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:28:21 +0000

Matt, you degenerate pig. If I had known that your epic 12-page article on this critical issue would be posted in full on the website, I wouldn’t have bothered standing in line in a public marketplace holding a magazine with the Jonas Brothers on the cover.

Seriously, though, keep up the good work. You’re on a roll.

By: stevecross

stevecross — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:10:50 +0000

This is an incredibly brilliant piece. I’m in the “investment” business and it’s obvious that the year-in, year-out bullishness of the Wall Street community belies the corruption Matt chronicles. I just returned from a “libertarian” type meeting in Las Vegas and the one consistent theme was the manipulation of money and markets by both the Fed and Wall Street “insiders”. The revolving door between Goldman Sachs and high level government jobs is disturbing.

Charlie Gasparino (CNBC reporter) said in Las Vegas last week that Wall Street is NOT a collection of “free-market” capitalists, but rather a group that is more interested in stacking the deck in their favor.

Just a great piece Matt!

By: Judging Goldman - The Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com

Judging Goldman - The Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:47:32 +0000

[...] any event, everyone can relax now. As Taibbi posted yesterday, “FYI the Goldman piece is now up on the web in its entirety. Thanks for your patience.” The complete article is [...]

By: thermon

thermon — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:54:04 +0000

Matt, great article. It succeeded in making me feel completely outraged and got me totally in your corner. Until the last part about carbon, which after making me feel a bit conflicted, began to emerge as dubious. It gives one a sense of being politically motivated. As in, you should be against cap-and-trade because of such and such and such. I have two questions for you. And I admit I may be relatively uninformed on the matter, but these are open questions, for anyone who might be able to offer insight.

One. You offer a “fixed government levy on carbon pollution” as a better alternative. My question is, but is this option even on the table? Is such option even part of the national debate to the extent that it has a chance of being adopted? In other words, what stance should who actually care about the environment actually take? Why back a better alternative if it’s sure to fail? Isn’t cap-and-trade the least of evils out there? In fact, it hardly seems so inevitable that, as you state, cap-and-trade is “going to happen.”

Two. Is it your conclusion that the cap-and-trade system will be ineffective in its environmental objective? Even if the carbon market gives rise to opportunities for profiteers to screw us over, do you think it will fail at its goal to reduce carbon emissions? You don’t think that a situation where carbon credits prices are ridiculously over inflated will be all the more persuasive for companies to lower their emissions or drop dead because their business models have already been obsolete for decades?

By: scooterkpft

scooterkpft — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:43:47 +0000

Something Awful had the article up long enough for me to read it.

It elicited fond memories of old friends in the print media.

Gary Webb comes to mind.

By: robhaerr

robhaerr — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:49:18 +0000

Good on you for mentioning Al Gore in the “BUBBLE #6 Global Warming” section, Matt. I have only read what was online before this complete article. I am all about a clean environment and making money from providing products that help having a cleaner environment. But…something just doesn’t smell right…something in this seems a little polluted(?) Looking forward to reading more from you, since everything else seems to be coming from only right-wing blogs. Cheers.