Griftopia by Matt Taibbi Book Review
Griftopia by Matt Taibbi Book Review
It’s no secret that I enjoy reading Matt Taibbi’s Rolling Stone articles so I copped his new book Griftopia and just finished reading it, which is subtitled: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America.
Taibbi’s basic view is that regular American’s are “fighting over the same 5-10 percent swatch of undecided voters, blues versus reds. Instead, the parties should be broken down into haves and have-nots – a couple of obnoxious bankers on the Upper East Side running for office against 280 million pissed-off credit card and mortgage customers.” And: “When the Republicans win elections, their voters think they’ve struck a blow against big government. And when a Democratic hero like Barack Obama wins, his supporters think they’ve won a great victory for tolerance and diversity. Even I thought that.” (Even I thought that also) And this has created a paradise for high-class thieves.
He continues: “There are really two Americas, one for the grifter class and one for everyboy else. In everybody-else land, the world of small businesses and wage-earning employees, the government is something to be avoided…In the grifter world, however, government is a lavish lapdog that the financial companies that will be the major players…use as a tool for making money.”
In the first chapter, he ginsu’s Rick Santelli, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman and Larry Kudlow among others. He saves the greatest disses for The Tea Party (which he actually gives a balanced critique of) and explains how they are simply a pawn for the elites (“A loose definition of the Tea Party might be fifteen million pissed-ff white people sent chasing after Mexicans on Medicaid by the small handful of banks and investment companies who advertise on Fox and CNBC.”). The elites have confused the Tea Party members and Taibbi drops this gem: “The insurmountable hurdle for so-called populist movements is having the nerve to attack the rich instead of the poor. Even after the rich almost destroyed the entire golobal economy through their sheer unrestrained greed and stupidity, we can’t shake the peasant mentality that says we should go easy on them…” which is an underlying theme in The G Manifesto.
In the second chapter “The Biggest Asshole in the Universe”, Taibbi rips apart Alan Greenspan and Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged (which I have never read). He then proceeds to break down the Mortgage Scam, The Commodities Bubble, an amazing chapter on Sovereign Wealth funds and the selling off of America, the Health Care reform bait-and-switch and the American Bubble Machine.
Taibbi is a little shaky on his explanation of the commodities markets, but his conclusions are always dead on.
This is a pretty amazing and humorous book that explains what has been happening in America written by one of the best writers of our generation.
Read it if you want to know what time it is.
Click Here for Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America
The Rest is Up to You…
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
Righteous Seed – Dom Pachino
28/12/2010 at 11:33 am Permalink
“The insurmountable hurdle for so-called populist movements is having the nerve to attack the rich instead of the poor. Even after the rich almost destroyed the entire golobal economy through their sheer unrestrained greed and stupidity, we can’t shake the peasant mentality that says we should go easy on them…”
Does he mention the indelibly multiracial ideology of our ruling class, which imposes Third World immigration upon an unwilling country, regardless of the will of the host population, or the results of voter plebiscites? Immigration and multiracialism are obviously costly and divisive, and observably an aspect of the economic situation–see, for example:
http://takimag.com/article/the_diversity_recession
http://takimag.com/article/the_diversity_recession_gets_worse
http://takimag.com/article/greenspan_and_the_diversity_recession
One must explain why this characteristic of the ruling class and its abuses is ignored.
28/12/2010 at 11:35 am Permalink
G,
You said: “In the second chapter ‘The Biggest Asshole in the Universe’, Taibbi rips apart Alan Greenspan and Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged (which I have never read).”
Here are two articles to shed light on the novel–for better or worse (to save you the trouble of reading 1,200 pages).
1: http://leparvenue.blogspot.com/2010/08/shrugging-with-growing-load.html
2: http://leparvenue.blogspot.com/2009/11/ayn-rand.html
Greenspan is a controversial figure, to say the least. The connection between Rand and Greenspan has been argued at length and its easy to take potshots at both. Taibbi is a gifted journalist, but he’s out of his depth on economic matters. Looks like a good read, though.
–Le Parvenue
29/12/2010 at 10:46 am Permalink
I read this book, and i enjoyed it. His critique of our political society is humorous, abrasive and unforgiving. The way he rips on politicians and corrupt men Alan Greenspan, Sarah Palin, goldman sachs execs etc. is pretty damn close to poetic justice.
One of my critiques would be for all the lambasting he gives our politicians for being wrong on all accounts, he gives no reasons for HOW we could change for the better.
More than anything though, this book depressed the shit out of me. I had to take yet another look at how far gone my country really is.
I would say that I want to fight, to make a difference, to stand up for what i believe in… but I have a very miniscule chance of actually changing anything. I can’t even sway my college aged friends to even SEE what is wrong with the country, so I doubt i could turn the tide of a submissive, drugged out, increasingly submissive
Wasn’t America once proud of its freedom of speech?
Wasn’t America founded to escape the taxes of Great Britian?
Wasn’t America once a land of the free, where government control was critizied and not excused as ‘necessary’?
Can individuals not see that this war on terror does not make them safer?
excuse me…. but any time my sovereign rights are trampled on – i don’t thnk i am safer, in any way.
I’d LIKE to think i could perhaps make a difference, but its reached the point where i can see most of my fellow americans are so BRAINWASHED into a florinated, consumeristic, sheeplike existence that it would be IMPOSSIBLE to swim against the tide.
Moreover, powers beyond our control pillage the value of our dollar, create unsustainable amounts of debt, start numerous (unwinnable) wars against an ideology, and then excuse it all as for our own good.
We are due.
Past due even.
Really i think the my option is the 5 flags theory.
Oh America, how fast and how far you have fallen.
30/12/2010 at 9:16 pm Permalink
The truth is that both parties are the same. They each extend the statist quo and are almost exact copies. It is time to smash the false right-left paradigm. If you are going to get involved with poltics vote for liberty, not more of the same statism under the guise of democrats and republicans.
31/12/2010 at 4:12 am Permalink
This looks like a good book to get around to reading, but I am not too keen on people that will write books that target people, instead of ideologies. They say Palin is dumb, like you need to be a rocket scientist to lead us. It is universally agreed by historians that George Washington was not overly brilliant. He was unwavering in his beliefs that we should be a free country, and the people trusted him.
Our founders actually wanted to escape the Bank of England more so than taxes, and be able to call their own shots. Jefferson and his co-horts were against a private central bank, and Jackson fought against it with everything he had.
The reason we have bubbles to be begin with is because we have a privately owned federal reserve central bank that uses the fractional banking system where they can expand a fictional deposit by the order of 10, making money appear out of thin air.
That is leverage. All great fortunes were made from leverage, and all great financial catastrophes were caused by leverage. Including this one. The CDS and other financial instruments were made possible by a law signed by Clinton on his way out in 1999. And I liked Clinton. I trusted him, he started off as a liberal, but bent back to center-right when he saw that was where the U.S. wanted to be. But on his way out, he passed a lot of laws and pardoned some people that looked like favors to the ultra-rich.
Ayn Rands’ point is lost on some people, a lot of times (I read Atlas Shrugged) but it is a novel. FICTION. It is a wicked l-o-n-g novel. Her point was that the government is not the solution, but rather it is the problem. Reagan said that, too.
The commenter, Fade, has got it right, and when I get depressed thinking that the country is doomed, someone like Fade shows up, who gets it, and I feel like we have a chance.
31/12/2010 at 12:16 pm Permalink
I want to comment but I don’t even know where to start. Taxes=bad, Big government=bad, Jackass or Elephant= bad. It’s all bad. Watching people fight over five dollar sweaters for christmas gifts=digusting. But where is the solution. I liked what Citizen Desperado wrote that you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to lead. Not all our founding fathers were extraordinarily intelligent. Some where but not all. Thay had beliefs and conviction. They were willing to fight and die for what they believed in. Not many people in this country are willing to do that any more. Fade is right saying even if he fought, would he see a change. My money would be on no he wouldn’t. He would just end up in jail or dead. It all begins at birth. The way we raise our kids. I try to raise them to think on their own and not to rely on the government for anything. Then they go to school and are taught that being boys is wrong. They should be more feminine. My daughter is taught being a female is a sign of weakness. She should be more like a male. Roles have been reversed. I had to go to meet with my oldest boys teacher one day because some kid walked up and hit him so he defended himself. They made it seem like my son was the one that was wrong. Not to mention the school had so much propoganda up it looked like Al Gore was the principle. There I go again ranting and raving. Can’t we get back to swooping girls, puttin’ in work, you know general type situations a G should find himself in.
31/12/2010 at 12:56 pm Permalink
Mexican, you are right. The feminization of our boys is a big problem in the U.S. I am currently on a vacation (on the run, maybe) in Brazil. I brought my 6 year old, who is a little more masculine than average for a boy for the U.S. We have been here for a few months, and he has gotten a lot of Brazilian boys as friends. What a difference a few months have made. He has gone from average for the U.S. to mini alpha male of the universe.
They think nothing of starting to fight and wrestle right in the middle of playing, and the parents don’t say or do anything. There is no-one coming over to say my kid hit theirs. We went to a mall the other day, and at 6 he is already flirting with the little girls. Back in the states, the little girls were being trained already at that age that boys had better be nice to them, or don’t talk to the boys.
Here, in Brazil, the little girls smile and try to be extra nice to the boys. I think that is a way of life here in Brazil. That is why I am with a Brazilian, anyways.
I wrote a post about Christmas here in Brazil..citizendesperado.com
Check it out. Tchow
09/01/2011 at 2:12 am Permalink
nice review. have you seen the documentary “the corporation”.