Stop everything and read this book – not tomorrow, today! Taibbi is the latest and, by far (so far), the best of the army of scholars and journalists illuminating the horror of the recent financial crisis and the malfeasance of major players. His directness and candor is refreshing and informative. He lays out the real significance of the AIG bailout, the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the taxpayer-subsidized super-profitability of Goldman Sachs, Greenspan’s insane shenanigans at the Fed, the authentic toxicity of the health care bill (not the brainless critique from the radical right) among other things. You will emerge from this book understanding your world and its mortal perils with astonishing new lucidity. Another outstanding book, Winner Take All Politics (Pierson and Hacher, 2010), gives you the 30 year strategic history of the most recent seizure of our country by financial elites. Taibbi gives you the tactical implications of this seizure. If we are to take back our political and economic systems, this kind of clear-eyed understanding is the crucial first step.
Reviewed by Paul M. Bingham and Joanne Souza
Coauthors of “Death from a Distance and the Birth of a Humane Universe”
Matt Taibbi
Spiegel & Grau (2010)
