Quote

I'm a product of an East Coast liberal arts educational system.

Matt Taibbi

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Matt Taibbi
Age: 54
Born: 1970
Born: March 2
Author
Editorial Columnist
Journalist
Writer
Matthew C. Taibbi
Matthew Taibbi
Product
East
Products
System
Art
Coast
Liberal
Arts
Educational

More quotes by Matt Taibbi

Image
George Bush and John Ashcroft were religious in a scary way, but the rational among us could always take heart that, deep down, the Bush administration was more cynical than messianic.
Matt Taibbi
Image
The mistake our politicians so often make with these industry leaders is in thinking they are interested in, or respectful of, the power of government. All they want is to keep stealing. If you can offer them the government’s seal of approval on that, they’ll take it. But if you can’t, well, they’ll take that too.
Matt Taibbi
Image
In the old days, when you took out a mortgage, it was probably through a local bank or a credit union, and whoever gave you your loan held on to it for life. If you lost your job or got too sick to work and suddenly had trouble making your payments, you could call a human being and work things out.
Matt Taibbi
Image
Within the cult of Wall Street that forged Mitt Romney, making money justifies any behavior, no matter how venal.
Matt Taibbi
Image
There are some who think that the government is limited in how many corruption cases it can bring against Wall Street, because juries can't understand the complexity of the financial schemes involved. But in 'U.S.A. v. Carollo,' that turned out not to be true.
Matt Taibbi
Image
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.
Matt Taibbi
Image
John Boehner is the ultimate Beltway hack, a man whose unmatched and self-serving skill at political survival has made him, after two decades in Washington, the hairy blue mold on the American congressional sandwich.
Matt Taibbi
Image
Unquestionably, however, something else is at work, something that cuts deeper into the American psyche. We have a profound hatred of the weak and the poor, and a corresponding groveling terror before the rich and successful, and we're building a bureaucracy to match those feelings.
Matt Taibbi
Image
At root, the Tea Party is nothing more than a them-versus-us thing.
Matt Taibbi
Image
Ratings agencies are the glue that ostensibly holds the entire financial industry together.
Matt Taibbi
Image
The basic scam in the Internet age is pretty easy even for the financially illiterate to grasp. It was as if banks like Goldman were wrapping ribbons around watermelons, tossing them out fiftieth-story windows, and opening the phones for bids. In this game you were a winner only if you took your money out before the melon hit the pavement.
Matt Taibbi
Image
Over the years, many in the public have become numb to news of financial corruption, partly because too many of these stories involve banker-on-banker crime.
Matt Taibbi
Image
I mean, people who say that the Tea Party isn't a grassroots movement, I think, are incorrect. I think in some respects, it is a grassroots movement.
Matt Taibbi
Image
Our leaders know we’re turning into a giant ghetto and they are taking every last hubcap they can get their hands on before the rest of us wake up and realize what’s happened.
Matt Taibbi
Image
What we Americans go through to pick a president is not only crazy and unnecessary but genuinely abusive. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent in a craven, cynical effort to stir up hatred and anger on both sides.
Matt Taibbi
Image
Amendments occupy a great deal of most legislators' time, particularly those lawmakers in the minority. Members of Congress do author major bills, but more commonly they make minor adjustments to the bigger bill.
Matt Taibbi
Image
The significance of Columbus's discovery was that on a round earth, humanity is more interconnected than on a flat one. On a round earth, the two most distant points are closer together than they are on a flat earth.
Matt Taibbi
Image
It's not a stretch to say the whole financial industry revolves around the compass point of the absolutely safe AAA rating. But the financial crisis happened because AAA ratings stopped being something that had to be earned and turned into something that could be paid for.
Matt Taibbi
Image
Obviously, people who commit crimes should be punished. Even people who steal socks and 'Snow White' videos should probably do time if they have priors, especially serious priors. But the punishment has to fit the crime, and the standard has to be the same for everyone.
Matt Taibbi
Image
This idea that you can't be an honest man and a Washington politician is a myth, a crock made up by sellouts and careerist hacks who don't stand for anything and are impatient with people who do. It's possible to do this job with honor and dignity.
Matt Taibbi