Matt Taibbi

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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/

iatee, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 20:58 (twelve years ago) link

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, 26 September 2012 21:00 (twelve years ago) link

ha er 'come on'

goole, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 21:01 (twelve years ago) link

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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iatee, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 21:04 (twelve years ago) link

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...

s.clover, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 21:07 (twelve years ago) link

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

iatee, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 21:11 (twelve years ago) link

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

s.clover, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 21:21 (twelve years ago) link

otm

iatee, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 21:21 (twelve years ago) link

Fact schmacts.

Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 26 September 2012 21:28 (twelve years ago) link

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

lag∞n, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 23:56 (twelve years ago) link

they all do, it's their thing

goole, Thursday, 27 September 2012 00:41 (twelve years ago) link

what if there are multiple Ezra kleins

lag∞n, Thursday, 27 September 2012 00:43 (twelve years ago) link

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

kizz my hairy irish azz (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 27 September 2012 00:45 (twelve years ago) link

I didn't know Madonna was a muslim.

Aimless, Thursday, 27 September 2012 01:15 (twelve years ago) link

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.

curmudgeon, Thursday, 27 September 2012 14:50 (twelve years ago) link

Madonna in concert:

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

Ham Lushbaugh (Eric H.), Thursday, 27 September 2012 14:51 (twelve years ago) link

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?

kizz my hairy irish azz (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 27 September 2012 14:53 (twelve years ago) link

^^ I laughed

taking tiger mountain (up the butt) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 27 September 2012 14:54 (twelve years ago) link

haha

goole, Thursday, 27 September 2012 15:00 (twelve years ago) link

"Undecided" aside, well played.

Ham Lushbaugh (Eric H.), Thursday, 27 September 2012 15:03 (twelve years ago) link

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

kizz my hairy irish azz (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 27 September 2012 15:07 (twelve years ago) link

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

Ham Lushbaugh (Eric H.), Thursday, 27 September 2012 15:09 (twelve years ago) link

Morbs, I was kidding, as was Madonna

curmudgeon, Thursday, 27 September 2012 15:13 (twelve years ago) link

"sinkhole"

curmudgeon, Thursday, 27 September 2012 15:13 (twelve years ago) link

*hanky panky*

taking tiger mountain (up the butt) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 27 September 2012 15:17 (twelve years ago) link

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

flopson, Thursday, 27 September 2012 16:23 (twelve years ago) link

one month passes...
two weeks pass...

"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+

s.clover, Monday, 3 December 2012 23:39 (eleven years ago) link

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

drunk 'n' white's elements of style (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 4 December 2012 01:19 (eleven years ago) link

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

drunk 'n' white's elements of style (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 4 December 2012 01:20 (eleven years ago) link

"attorney Peter Calamari"

One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 4 December 2012 03:09 (eleven years ago) link

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."

in excelsis 乒乓 (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Thursday, 13 December 2012 23:05 (eleven years ago) link

three weeks pass...

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.

curmudgeon, Wednesday, 9 January 2013 20:16 (eleven years ago) link

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

da croupier, Wednesday, 9 January 2013 21:51 (eleven years ago) link

one year passes...

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...

schwantz, Friday, 14 February 2014 18:44 (ten years ago) link

blythe masters is such a great romance novel name

i had to stop reading that article, it was too depressing

Nhex, Friday, 14 February 2014 19:28 (ten years ago) link

I know. And now the banks can just argue that the cat's out of the bag, and trying to unwind them from these businesses would pop the bubble, etc. Wow, that was Friedman-level mixed metaphoring. But you know what I mean.

schwantz, Friday, 14 February 2014 19:37 (ten years ago) link

yeah this was hard to read

RAP GAME SHANI DAVIS (Raymond Cummings), Friday, 14 February 2014 19:39 (ten years ago) link

I kind of want to read something on the subject that isn't by Matt Taibbi.

Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Friday, 14 February 2014 19:46 (ten years ago) link

There was a big thing on alphaville re: it

just sayin, Friday, 14 February 2014 19:53 (ten years ago) link

link?

curmudgeon, Friday, 14 February 2014 20:40 (ten years ago) link

the thing discussing the taibbi article is on the main page, but you need to register. It was kind of stupid I thought. "Blah blah free markets blah"

Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Friday, 14 February 2014 20:43 (ten years ago) link

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2014/02/14/1771522/information-asymmetry-bad-incentives-and-taibbi/

Yeah, chock full of free markets happy-talk, while conveniently ignoring the amount of governmental bailouts, etc. that Goldman has received.

schwantz, Friday, 14 February 2014 20:48 (ten years ago) link

It reads like some kind of pro forma response that could be about any corporate or financial scandal. It barely even addresses the actual issues here other than to say "Well it's not ILLEGAL." Duh shit.

I also find it weird how free market dogma harps so much on "information" -- everything is based on this concept that the markets themselves should be "free" but everyone should have enough "information" to make rational choices. I never understood why there's this splitting off of "information" from the rest of the market -- if they really believe in free markets, why have the government even intervene in the information side of the equation? Why not let dominant players use their competitive edges in information too?

Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Friday, 14 February 2014 20:52 (ten years ago) link

the Informed Rational Actor is so fundamental to the whole idea, it's the faith in homo economicus that makes the whole beautiful machine possible, etc.; information has to be a sacrament cuz otherwise it looks like people trying to dominate each other; the free market's most natural mode of communication is advertising, an attempt at control (openly) disguised as a source of information; you know it's a mask but you can't take it off; whatever sorry idk

yeah you're absolutely right about the Informed Rational Actor theory, but it just strikes me that there's this weird fiction/mental contortion free marketers go through where it's ok to intervene in "information" as though "information" were somehow separate from "markets."

Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Friday, 14 February 2014 21:09 (ten years ago) link

Like if you really believe in free markets, why even require SEC filings?

Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Friday, 14 February 2014 21:09 (ten years ago) link


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