I was a bit of a troubled kid growing up, let's put it that way. I didn't take pleasure in hard work. Matt Taibbi More Quotes by Matt Taibbi More Quotes From Matt Taibbi America has two national budgets, one official, one unofficial. Matt Taibbi budgets two america America's always had a real passion for lunatic movements. That's one of the things we're probably known for around the world, I would imagine. Matt Taibbi passion real america Contracting corruption has been around since the construction of the Appian Way. Matt Taibbi construction corruption way Everybody I knew, practically, was a journalist when I was a kid - my father, all of his friends. I never wanted to be like those people. Matt Taibbi father kids people Everything in America is so uniform. In Russia, everywhere you go is completely insane. Matt Taibbi russia insane america Since the end of the Cold War, America has been grasping left and right for an identity. Matt Taibbi identity war america The average Tea Partier is sincerely against government spending - with the exception of the money spent on them. Matt Taibbi government tea average You know what an effective deterrent to crime is? Jail! And do you know what kind of criminal penalty actually makes people think twice about committing crimes the next time? The kind that actually comes out of some individual's pocket, not fines that come out of the corporate kitty. Matt Taibbi jail people thinking What we have now is a situation where politicians get a whole bunch of money from mainly business interests. Then once they hold that office, they spend all their time in office paying back over and over again those campaign contributions through various favors and contracts and that sort of thing. Matt Taibbi favors campaigns office 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 cynical effort crazy What the mortgage bubble was all about was big banks like Goldman Sachs taking big bundles of subprime mortgages that were lent out largely to low-income, highly risky borrowers, and applying this kind of magic-pixie-dust math to these bundles of securities and slapping AAA ratings on them. Matt Taibbi magic dust math By creating an urgent crisis that can only be solved by those fluent in a language too complex for ordinary people to understand, the Wall Street crowd has turned the vast majority of Americans into non-participants in their own political future. Matt Taibbi creating wall people To Wall Street, a firm like BP isn't just a profitable energy company with lots of assets like oil rigs and pipelines and gas stations - it's also a corporation that routinely borrows hundreds of millions of dollars to keep its business up and running. Matt Taibbi oil wall running 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 jobs men ideas The party in power almost always unapologetically engages in deficit spending, while the other party argues passionately against the evils of debt and deficits. Matt Taibbi debt party evil The only reason investors haven't run screaming from an obviously corrupt financial marketplace is because the government has gone to such extraordinary lengths to sell the narrative that the problems of 2008 have been fixed. Matt Taibbi government gone running By incentivizing Wall Street players to sniff out inefficient or corrupt companies and bet against them, short-selling acts as a sort of policing system; legal short-sellers have been instrumental in helping expose firms like Enron and WorldCom. Matt Taibbi wall player helping Comparing your family budget to the sovereign debt of the United States is a little like comparing two kindergartners tossing a paper airplane to the Apollo 11 mission. Matt Taibbi airplane united-states two Creating legislation is a tough process. But watering down legislation? Strangling it with lawsuits and comment letters and blue-ribbon committees? Not so tough, it turns out. Matt Taibbi creating letters blue 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 amendments minorities bills
