Mar 28, 2009

Matt Taibbi on the Global Economic Crisis

Trying to comprehend the Global Economic Crisis, a diligent lay reader can construct some broad narrative of the scale and motives of the financial sectors' machinations and the political and regulatory duplicity by reading Paul Craig Roberts, Nouriel Roubini's Global EconoMonitor, Paul Krugman, CounterPunch, among several other sources late at night.

But the undertaking is still like trying to understand the mathematics of SuperString Theory. We are not equipped.

Matt Taibbi's 8,700-word piece in Rolling Stone puts together the most coherent piece that I have read yet.

Check Taibbi's piece out, and bear it in mind as you read of the next attempt by the Obama administration (and the GOP pushback and its alleged concern for the everyday American) to try to contain this seeming black hole that appears to have come from nowhere and is somehow aligned with strange forces in our society, equipped with properties that transform our government into some vaguely malevolent entity. Sounds like science fiction.

Most Americans harbor vague notions that our country is run by a few powerful interests looking out for themselves. Most Americans appear to have been correct.

An excerpt from Taibbi:

So it's time to admit it: We're fools, protagonists in a kind of gruesome comedy about the marriage of greed and stupidity. And the worst part about it is that we're still in denial — we still think this is some kind of unfortunate accident, not something that was created by the group of psychopaths on Wall Street whom we allowed to gang-rape the American Dream. When Geithner announced the new $30 billion bailout, the party line was that poor AIG was just a victim of a lot of shitty luck — bad year for business, you know, what with the financial crisis and all. Edward Liddy, the company's CEO, actually compared it to catching a cold: 'The marketplace is a pretty crummy place to be right now,' he said. 'When the world catches pneumonia, we get it too.' In a pathetic attempt at name-dropping, he even whined that AIG was being 'consumed by the same issues that are driving house prices down and 401K statements down and Warren Buffet's investment portfolio down.'

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