Matt Taibbi Quotes
This is America: Corporate stealing is practically the national pastime, and Goldman Sachs is far from the only company to get away with doing it.
Taibbi, Matt. Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America. Spiegel & Grau, 2010.
The then attorney general had begun a series of investigation which discovered that most of the major Wall Street brokerage houses were engaged in systematic frauds to cheat small investors. One dramatic fraud he uncovered was that the research expert analysts of major firms would recommend the stock of businesses that their firm was doing investment banking for even when they knew that the companies were not doing well or were even in deep financial trouble. See {627544}.
While not every person in the stock market was dishonest, a large number were, and the system itself was inherently unfair and disadvantaged the average investor. Despite the many reforms attempted over the years, as the 2008 meltdown proved, the same problem was still with us. Capone was essentially right then and even today.
This quotation, in addition to posing a challenging political question, illustrates an oratorical technique that he was particularly good at. Instead of making declaratory and accusatory statements about the administration and their law enforcement record, he asks the question of how the actual outcome came about. The failure is then clear, and the accusation is made in the minds of many if not most of this audience.
Matthew C. Taibbi is an American author, journalist, and podcaster. He has reported on finance, media, politics, and sports. He is a contributing editor for Rolling Stone, author of several books, co-host of Useful Idiots, and publisher of a newsletter on Substack.
