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If anything, the bailouts actually hindered lending, as banks became more like house pets that grow fat and lazy on two guaranteed meals a day than wild animals that have to go out into the jungle and hunt for opportunities in order to eat.

Matt Taibbi

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Matt Taibbi
Age: 54
Born: 1970
Born: March 2
Author
Editorial Columnist
Journalist
Writer
Matthew C. Taibbi
Matthew Taibbi
Like
Animal
Meals
Pets
Grows
Fats
Lending
Actually
Lazy
Guaranteed
Opportunity
Opportunities
Hunt
House
Wild
Hunts
Order
Animals
Jungle
Two
Became
Banks
Anything
Grow
Pet
Hindered

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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.
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Within the cult of Wall Street that forged Mitt Romney, making money justifies any behavior, no matter how venal.
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People are beginning to become disturbingly comfortable with a kind of official hypocrisy. Bizarrely, for instance, we've become numb to the idea that rights aren't absolute but are enjoyed on a kind of sliding scale.
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Capitalism is a system for determining objective value.
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Since the end of the Cold War, America has been grasping left and right for an identity.
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The failure to work out sensible budgets makes it impossible for government agencies to make long-term plans, and instead leaves them scrambling to spend money in the short term.
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Being in the building with Sarah Palin that night is a transformative and oddly unsettling experience. It’s a little like having live cave-level access for the ripping-the-heart-out-with-the-bare-hands scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
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It would be inaccurate to say the Tea Partiers are racists. What they are, in truth, are narcissists.
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America is a country that has been skating for ages on its unparalleled ability to look marvelous on the outside.
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Once you give an NFL player permission to have thoughts, you invite all kinds of mischief.
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The problem with the Tea Party is that it's been used in a way that scares people into supporting an agenda that's counter to their own interests.
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