Griftopia cover art

Griftopia

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

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Griftopia

By: Matt Taibbi
Narrated by: Patrick Egan
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About this listen

 The dramatic story behind the most audacious power grab in American history

The financial crisis that exploded in 2008 isn’t past but prologue. The stunning rise, fall, and rescue of Wall Street in the bubble-and-bailout era was the coming-out party for the network of looters who sit at the nexus of American political and economic power. The grifter class—made up of the largest players in the financial industry and the politicians who do their bidding—has been growing in power for a generation, transferring wealth upward through increasingly complex financial mechanisms and political maneuvers. The crisis was only one terrifying manifestation of how they’ve hijacked America’s political and economic life.

Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi here unravels the whole fiendish story, digging beyond the headlines to get into the deeper roots and wider implications of the rise of the grifters. He traces the movement’s origins to the cult of Ayn Rand and her most influential—and possibly weirdest—acolyte, Alan Greenspan, and offers fresh reporting on the backroom deals that decided the winners and losers in the government bailouts. He uncovers the hidden commodities bubble that transferred billions of dollars to Wall Street while creating food shortages around the world, and he shows how finance dominates politics, from the story of investment bankers auctioning off America’s infrastructure to an inside account of the high-stakes battle for health-care reform—a battle the true reformers lost. Finally, he tells the story of Goldman Sachs, the “vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.”

Taibbi has combined deep sources, trailblazing reportage, and provocative analysis to create the most lucid, emotionally galvanizing, and scathingly funny account yet written of the ongoing political and financial crisis in America. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the labyrinthine inner workings of politics and finance in this country, and the profound consequences for us all. Americas Economic Conditions Economics Investing & Trading Politics & Government United States World Banking Wall Street Investing Taxation Global Financial Crisis Capitalism Government Socialism American History Thought-Provoking Stock Great Recession

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Critic reviews

“A stinging new history of the financial crisis that heralds a return of Menckenesque, dirt-under-the-fingernails American journalism.”—GQ

“A relentlessly disturbing, penetrating exploration of the root causes of the trauma that upended economic security in millions of American homes . . . a full-scale indictment of Wall Street and Washington.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Matt Taibbi is [Hunter S.] Thompson’s heir. . . . [Griftopia] is the most lucid, justifiably angry description of what happened and what continues to happen to our nation’s economy.”—Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“Taibbi chronicles the corruption of the political process with indignation and dark humor. The takeaway? Be angry, but blame the right culprits.”—Time
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Most relevant
Essential listening for anyone who really wants to know who and what caused the financial crisis of 2008. Lifts the lid on who really runs the show in the US (clue - its not the Government) and why they continue to get away with it.

Essential listening

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Taibbi is a great communicator and does an excellent job here of translating all the confusing & misleading jargon we hear about economics & finance into language that the public can understand. In each chapter he focuses on one of the different ways in which the American public are ripped off by their friends on Wall St. This includes the bank bailouts of the 07/08 crash, the mortgage scams which contributed to the crisis in the first place, commodities trading & the insurance industry. Special scorn & attention is reserved for Goldman Sachs & the one time Federal reserve chairman Alan Geenspan. Not many people have Taibbi's ability to research a complicated serious subject and make it interesting & comprehensible to the public and entertaining where possible. He doesn't come up with solutions to the underlying problems of corrupted, ineffective democracy. But to be fair to him he doesn't set out to do so. Reporting the world as it is, is a most valuable service in itself.

More books like this please

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This book is brilliant. Matt Taibbi's rants directred toward Alan Greenspan was one of my favorite sections of the book. The further you go in this book, the more it reminds me of a well staged horror film. You're terrified by the greedy hacks that control our economic and social life, but you can't turn away, you're forced to listen to the unraveling of a once great nation. But don't get me wrong, this is a very funny book and anyone who's interested in the 2008 meltdown should read this. (or listen).

The joy of being scared

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First few chapters on tea party I could do without. I hope he writes another book ten years on about the banks and what to do with them. Perhaps look at solutions like breaking up the investment banks like fdr. We need to keep shining a spotlight into the banal darkness to expose and not forget what the creatures of darkness are up to.

Loved the analysis on the banks

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