Saturday, December 18, 2010

Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America

Criminals. There’s no hemming and hawing or doubt about the author’s point of view in Matt Taibbi’s book, Griftopia. Using blunt and judgmental prose, he calls Goldman Sachs “a company of criminals” and refers to Alan Greenspan as an “asshole.” For some readers, such crass prose may be dismissed as shallow, but Taibbi is not superficial: he follows the money, and with clear and cogent prose opines on great lies and behavior that is not for the common good. He makes the point that “organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.” While he reprises his original Goldman Sachs story from Rolling Stone, with the vampire squid image, there’s much more covered in this book beyond the financial crisis: he covers health care and commodities speculation with the same serious edge. Any reader who has followed the financial crisis will find this book to be another valuable contribution to understanding what has been going on for the past few years.

Rating: Four-star (Highly Recommended)
Click here to purchase Griftopia from amazon.com.

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