“Critics say the OWS protesters hate the rich. Come on! Success is the national religion, and almost everyone is a believer. Americans love winners. But that's just the problem. These guys on Wall Street are not winning - they're cheating. And as much as we love the self-made success story, we hate the cheater that much more.” MadeSelfStoriesProblemGuyHateWinningRichStreetsWallCriticsBelieverWinnerCheatingSelf MadeCheaterSuccess Stories Author:Matt Taibbi
“An unregulated derivatives market essentially gives Wall Street a way to place hidden taxes on everything in the world.” WorldWayGivingStreetsWallTaxesDerivatives Author:Matt Taibbi
“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.” ThinkingGovernmentCasesStreetsWallInvolvedFinancialCorruptionBeing TrueComplexitySchemesJury Author:Matt Taibbi
“The individual incentive not to commit crime on Wall Street now is almost zero.” IndividualStreetsCrimeWallCommitZeroIncentivesAlmost Zero Author:Matt Taibbi
“Within the cult of Wall Street that forged Mitt Romney, making money justifies any behavior, no matter how venal.” MatterStreetsWallBehaviorMaking MoneyJustifyCultRomneyForged Author:Matt Taibbi
“'Nobody goes to jail.' This is the mantra of the financial-crisis era, one that saw virtually every major bank and financial company on Wall Street embroiled in obscene criminal scandals that impoverished millions and collectively destroyed hundreds of billions, in fact, trillions of dollars of the world's wealth - and nobody went to jail.” WorldFactsWealthCompanyMillionsSawsStreetsWallMajorsCrisisDollarsFinancialCriminalsBillionsDestroyedErasJailScandalMantrasObsceneFinancial Crisis Author:Matt Taibbi
“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.” PeoplePoliticalLanguageStreetsWallCreatingOrdinaryCrisisMajorityComplexesCrowdsOrdinary PeopleUrgentParticipantsFluent Author:Matt Taibbi
“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.” Has BeensHelpingCompanyPlayerStreetsWallSellingFirmSellersEnron Author:Matt Taibbi
“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.” RunningEnergyCompanyMillionsStreetsWallDollarsOilFirmCorporationsGasStationsAssetsProfitablePipelineGas StationsRigs Author:Matt Taibbi
“Wall Street has turned the economy into a giant asset-stripping scheme, one whose purpose is to suck the last bits of meat from the carcass of the middle class.” LastsPurposeBitsClassEconomyStreetsMiddleWallMeatGiantsMiddle ClassAssetsSchemesStripping Author:Matt Taibbi
