Griftopia – Matt Taibbi
I have just finished Matt Taibbi’s Griftopia.
As with all Matt’s writings this book is not for people who have faith in the goodness of human nature.
Matt provides endless facts and recorded history of just how powerful the likes of Goldman Sachs is in controlling the government, avoiding prosecution and generally raising a finger to society as a whole – greed is good but having ex Goldman Sachs employees riddled throughout key government positions is even better.
I have now read a few books on the 2008 collapse and all point the finger at the relationship between government and Wall Street that ultimately rooted the world economy and where no major players have gone to jail. Matt goes deep into this relationship and pulls out a few surprises for me such as the background to Alan Greenspan’s thinking on how the markets would regulate themselves and not be greedy and create products like ‘CDO Squared’.
Matt dedicates an entire chapter to Alan Greenspan who he considers ‘The Biggest Asshole in the Universe’ and after reading that chapter I have to agree.
I have a rather pessimistic view on human nature – sharing positive quotes within Facebook is not going to change the world – not when you have the likes of Goldman Sachs controlling it. However, even I had to take breaks from reading Giftopia to cleanse my mind of being introduced to even higher levels of evil, corruption and greed that is ingrained deep into government and Wall Street – ‘power corrupts all’. I knew government, with our tax payers money, bailed out Wall Street but Matt provides even more examples of how far this went.
Ultimately Matt’s book is just another containing clear evidence that government and Wall Street are one and the same and the only people that will pay the price for this mess is us – the 99%.
However I would buy this book just for the chapter on Alan Greenspan as it sheds light on why this guy took the leash of Wall Street.
