Taibbi: The Lunatics Who Made a Religion Out of Greed and Wrecked the Economy

Taibbi: The Lunatics Who Made a Religion Out of Greed and Wrecked the Economy

www.alternet.org

Even if he stands to make a buck at it, even your average used-car salesman won't sell some working father a car with wobbly brakes, then buy life insurance policies on that customer and his kids. But this is done almost as a matter of routine in the financial services industry, where the attitude after the inevitable pileup would be that that family was dumb for getting into the car in the first place. Caveat emptor, dude!

(visit the link for the full news article)

Taibbi rips the "greed is good" crowd a new one in this article originally written for the The Guardian.

He points out the confusion of the Goldman bankers when confronted with their disgraceful criminal behavior. They are perplexed. Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein told The Times he was "doing God's work"!

In the Wall St Casino investment banks Goldman Sachs is renowned for EXTREME banking! The X games of gambling with the American taxpayer footing the bill!

www.alternet.org
(visit the link for the full news article)

In case you missed Taibbi's original article in Rolling Stone, ]here is the link. It's well worth the read.

They achieve this using the same playbook over and over again. The formula is relatively simple: Goldman positions itself in the middle of a speculative bubble, selling investments they know are crap. Then they hoover up vast sums from the middle and lower floors of society with the aid of a crippled and corrupt state that allows it to rewrite the rules in exchange for the relative pennies the bank throws at political patronage. Finally, when it all goes bust, leaving millions of ordinary citizens broke and starving, they begin the entire process over again, riding in to rescue us all by lending us back our own money at interest, selling themselves as men above greed, just a bunch of really smart guys keeping the wheels greased. They've been pulling this same stunt over and over since the 1920s — and now they're preparing to do it again, creating what may be the biggest and most audacious bubble yet.

Of course he doesn't touch on the average American consumer and how their spending habits are just as much to blame for this. I have no problem w/ a fun GS bash here and there but this guy is getting old IMO.

I have also read some other articles by him that were chalked full of misinformation relating to HFT etc. Of course this is popular so he gets his name out more and all that but he is either not that intelligent or spreads half truths on purpose in the past to sell more magazines / more hyperlink clicks.

But if you ask me the American consumer has about 5x as much to do with this than anything GS had their hand in. And if you really want to blame someone we should blame our elected representatives.

[edit on 26-4-2010 by GreenBicMan]

Originally posted by Leo Strauss
Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein told The Times he was "doing God's work"!

When these people say this it is not the god you people think. People use these words for public consumption knowing it means something else, but we think he is some sort of christian, lol.

Originally posted by GreenBicMan
Of course he doesn't touch on the average American consumer and how their spending habits are just as much to blame for this. I have no problem w/ a fun GS bash here and there but this guy is getting old IMO.

The people need their pound of flesh and the politicians and their publicists are all to happy to serve someone up. A year ago GS could do no wrong remember, they were there to help Obama clean up the mess of the Republican congress and big oil tycoons. In a few more months it'll be someone else.

reply to post by ararisq


I agree with that, but really there is no debating that. Over the past few months I have seen GS blamed for everything from crashing the economy to being responsible for earthquakes and volcano eruptions lol.

I've personally enjoyed seeing GS play the scapegoat, maybe its just the mob mentality in me. I guess I just like to see rust on platinum.(?) None of it adds up for me though, I thought Obama was a WS front-man or is the GS a ploy. I wish I knew what was going on.

The idea that enlightened self interest as the only regulation necessary seems to have failed.

Link

Greenspan, 82, acknowledged under questioning that he had made a “mistake” in believing that banks, operating in their own self-interest, would do what was necessary to protect their shareholders and institutions. Greenspan called that “a flaw in the model ... that defines how the world works.”

Ayn Rand must be unsheathing her riding crop right about now in preparation for Greenspan. "That sniveling gnome needs a little discipline!" Thwack!

Here is another example of the perplexed attitude of the Goldman bankers just in at Yahoo news.

“To tell you the truth, I’m not sure it doesn’t help,” says one Goldman banker about the fraud charges. “Sure does make us look smart, right?”

Right Right??? makes us "look smart". That kind of colossal arrogance can only come if you are "too big to fail". Am I right?

Don't get me wrong Obama will do nothing this is all a show just like the healthcare bill was a complete gift to industry. I am sure Goldman is busy crafting the new "regulations" to be implemented.

Great thread. I think anyone who believes that greed is good and that wealth comes from the grace of God have stopped reading the Bible for themselves and must be spoon fed something really sinister from a corrupt or politically motivated member of the clergy.

Anyway, if GS gets away with this and no new financial regulations are set in place to prevent these parasites from doing this again we are all screwed. I think it's a shame that the Senate Republicans will not even allow financial reform to be debated on the floor.

www.nytimes.com...

What are they afraid of?

reply to post by Leo Strauss

It's easy to look at the situation and condemn free market principles but if you take a step back it can be viewed a little differently.
I know GS has a lot of autonomy in decision-making but maybe they're too chummy with the Fed- which is supposed to be the impartial, neutral policy-making body.
I ask you, is that a free market when the paternal Fed favors certain banks?

When somebody gets swindled by a con artist, do you blame the con artist, or do you blame the victim?


That seems to be the heart of the debate, here. Who's fault is it that the system collapsed -- the people setting the stage for collapse, or the unwitting people who ultimately provided the means for it to collapse?

Originally posted by ChrisCrikey
Great thread. I think anyone who believes that greed is good and that wealth comes from the grace of God have stopped reading the Bible for themselves and must be spoon fed something really sinister from a corrupt or politically motivated member of the clergy.

Anyway, if GS gets away with this and no new financial regulations are set in place to prevent these parasites from doing this again we are all screwed. I think it's a shame that the Senate Republicans will not even allow financial reform to be debated on the floor.

www.nytimes.com...

What are they afraid of?

The same thing you should be afraid of.

en.wikipedia.org...

Regulatory capture occurs when a state regulatory agency created to act in the public interest instead acts in favor of the commercial or special interests that dominate in the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. Regulatory capture is a form of government failure, as it can act as an encouragement for large firms to produce negative externalities. The agencies are called Captured Agencies. For public choice theorists, regulatory capture occurs because groups or individuals with a high-stakes interest in the outcome of policy or regulatory decisions can be expected to focus their resources and energies in attempting to gain the policy outcomes they prefer, while members of the public, each with only a tiny individual stake in the outcome, will ignore it altogether. Regulatory capture refers to when this imbalance of focused resources devoted to a particular policy outcome is successful at "capturing" influence with the staff or commission members of the regulatory agency, so that the preferred policy outcomes of the special interest are implemented. Regulatory capture theory is a core focus of the branch of public choice referred to as the economics of regulation; economists in this specialty are critical of conceptualizations of governmental regulatory intervention as being motivated to protect public good. Often cited articles include Bernstein (1955), Huntington (1952), Laffont & Tirole (1991), and Levine & Forrence (1990). The theory of regulatory capture is associated with Nobel laureate economist George Stigler, one of its main developers. The risk of regulatory capture suggests that regulatory agencies should be protected from outside influence as much as possible, or else not created at all. A captured regulatory agency that serves the interests of its invested patrons with the power of the government behind it is often worse than no regulation whatsoever.

[edit on 26-4-2010 by yellowcard]

reply to post by Leo Strauss


Thumbs way up

Taibi is a solid voice of uncommon common sense

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Anyone who believes the B.S. that the working class consumer is to blame only needs to watch this great expose on the credit industry:

MAXED OUT

topdocumentaryfilms.com...

But then GreenBicMan chooses self-censorship instead of actually dealing with the relevant information!

Ah the glory of the cult of finance -- a self-referential cult of mass sacrifice....

Now the $600 TRILLION derivatives collapse is kicking in:

www.wnd.com...



[edit on 26-4-2010 by drew hempel]