Matt Taibbi

its kind of like saying hit records are evil because they prevent the major labels from collapsing

taibbi is pretty irritating and has an awful rhetorical style but i don't think a guy who favors breaking up monopolies and tighter bank regulations can fairly be called a 'libertarian,' no matter how many vague worries about 'fake money' they express.

you can’t just print money and get yourself out of economic trouble that way. There is a tremendous inflationary danger here...

I have a hard time believing Taibbi hasn't figured out this whole "printing money" thing, but if this is an accurate quote, then he hasn't learned much from his last four years of interviewing and writing.

In a nutshell: during the boom years before 2008, vast boatloads of money were created out of nothing, and by this I mean many trillions of dollars. Except this money wasn't created out of nothing by the Federal Reserve. Instead, it was banks that did it. This is what banks do, even when they are operating properly -- as they were not during the boom. Creating money out of "nothing" is their business model.

In 2008, when the credit bubble built by the banks collapsed, many, many trillions of dollars of money vanished. They reverted back to thin air. But the economy was still built around the reality that this money once had, and that reality persisted in the form of contracts. Except there wasn't enough money in the whole world to fullfill those contracts. That is why the Fed has printed so much money lately. It isn't dangerously inflationary. It is profoundly necessary.

The worst part of this is that Congress should have been the agent for the Fed's easing. Congress should have authorized the spending and the Fed should have monetized the debt by buying up a few trillions of T-bonds and T-bills. Instead, the Congress went batshit and balked at doing its plain duty to the country and the Fed has been pumping all this largesse directly into the banks instead, where it does much less good.

Taibbi ought to know this. Apparently he doesn't.

he was just labeled a libertarian re monetary policy xp

confusion about QE is pretty widespread among radical populist types in general. But that said, it is sort of a big juicy target, and the main effect (insofar as it has had any) has been to shove some money to people who don't need it. It's just that inflation doesn't really enter the picture.

taibbi's written about this more cogently elsewhere actually.

and the main effect (insofar as it has had any) has been to shove some money to people who don't need it.

― s.clover, Wednesday, September 26, 2012 4:26 PM (59 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well that and avoid total economic calamity

brb writing dystopian novel re mccain presidency

Chabon or Lethem beating you to it

curses

Chapter 1: McCain Dies, Palin becomes President

dun dun DUN

"I can see Williamsburg from my house!"

taibbi's written about this more cogently elsewhere actually.

― s.clover, Wednesday, September 26, 2012 3:27 PM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

taibbi admits that his source for knowledge on monetary policy is zerohedge

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2010/02/19/on-the-bailout-hustle/

it's not exactly godwin's law but come one, you need to be very leery of anyone who calls himself 'tyler durden' on the internet

ha er 'come on'

Matt Taibbi ‏@mtaibbi

If you or someone you know has had a very bad experience in jail after being convicted of a relatively minor offense, pls write to me
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well that and avoid total economic calamity

― lag∞n, Wednesday, September 26, 2012 4:29 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think we did this discussion elsewhere, like a year ago. but yeah, I don't think QE mattered that much. Never saw any research that showed it moved markets more than a smidge. Ironically, ZH and similar types are the ones who have insisted that it's had the most impact. There's so much money in play at such volumes that QE never amounted to much, huge as it seems. And the end of QE didn't matter that much either, which helps bear this out. Lots more money than QE was doled out at the peak of the crisis in much more direct ways too, remember. And rates were hitting zero regardless, so...

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2012/07/24/1094601/the-academics-on-qe-for-now/

my reading of that post tends to support my point, but you know, who cares.

otm

Fact schmacts.

it's not exactly godwin's law but come one, you need to be very leery of anyone who calls himself 'tyler durden' on the internet

― goole, Wednesday, September 26, 2012 5:00 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there are multiple posters who call themselves tyler durden on that site lol

they all do, it's their thing

what if there are multiple Ezra kleins

all this debate abt a RS journalist while Madonna endorsing Obama as a Muslim goes unobserved; you people.

I didn't know Madonna was a muslim.

I'm glad Madonna explained herself to the Washington Post today. Otherwise millions of undecided voters who base their views on Madonna's onstage comments would have been confused. I am sure Taibbi will find a way to work this in.

Madonna in concert:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YIq5Q15L1o

Otherwise millions of undecided voters who base their views on Madonna's onstage comments would have been confused.

Are you familiar with the Human Rights Campaign?

^^ I laughed

haha

"Undecided" aside, well played.

it's true, bitches who give money to that sinkhole are only undecided about what belt to wear to brunch.

That and whether they feel comfortable admitting they have a thing for Rep. Aaron Schock.

Morbs, I was kidding, as was Madonna

"sinkhole"

*hanky panky*

idt matt taibbi's sense of humour is that different from like, dan perry's, or whiney's even, i guess a bit more macho but it's got the same basic structure ito, like, these enraged long incongruous expletive laden analogies

Comments here are comedy gold:http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/rewrite-thomas-friedmans-syria-column-win-a-free-hand-grenade-20121114

this is hilarious http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/no-evidence-he-was-stoned-but-bank-of-america-ceo-brian-moynihan-apparently-doesn-t-remember-much-of-the-last-four-years-20121127

"a Being There-esque cipher who was placed in charge of a Too-Big-To-Fail global banking giant by some kind of historical accident beyond his control, and appears to know little to nothing at all about the business he is running." <-- A+

So I guess Matt Taibbi has never read a deposition transcript before?

Because in my experience, it's generally true that if you remember the financial crisis, you weren't there.

"attorney Peter Calamari"

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213

for some reason every time this thread gets revived i expect it to be a report that taibbi died, possibly by his own hand or "death by misfortune."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/secret-and-lies-of-the-bailout-20130104#ixzz2HQDiw8gU

Haven't read this yet. Am guessing it's standard Taibbi.

another narrative about how everything has been utterly fucked up by ugly shitbrain poopyheads, yes

More grist for the mill: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-vampire-squid-strikes-again-the-mega-banks-most-devious-scam-yet-20140212?print=true

Choice bits:

The JPMorgan deal seemed to be in direct violation of an order sent to the bank by the Fed in 2005, which declared the bank was not authorized to "own, operate, or invest in facilities for the extraction, transportation, storage, or distribution of commodities." The way the Fed later explained this to the Senate was that the purchase of Henry Bath was OK because it considered the acquisition of this commodities company kosher within the context of a larger sale that the Fed was cool with – "If the bulk of the acquisition is a permissible activity, they're allowed to include a small amount of impermissible activities."

...

Meanwhile, Chase's own head of commodities operations, Blythe Masters – an even more famed Wall Street figure, sometimes described as the inventor of the credit default swap – admitted that her company's warehouse interests weren't just a casual thing. "Just being able to trade financial commodities is a serious limitation because financial commodities represent only a tiny fraction of the reality of the real commodity exposure picture," she said in 2010.

Loosely translated, Masters was saying that there was a limited amount of money to be made simply trading commodities in the traditional legal manner. The solution? "We need to be active in the underlying physical commodity markets," she said, "in order to understand and make prices."

We need to make prices. The head of Chase's commodities division actually said this, out loud, and it speaks to both the general unlikelihood of God's existence and the consistently low level of competence of America's regulators that she was not immediately zapped between the eyebrows with a thunderbolt upon doing so. Instead, the government sat by and watched as a curious phenomenon developed at all of these new bank-owned warehouses, in the aluminum markets in particular.

So fucking maddening...