Yeah, I'm sure a lot of folks are actually going to take your word over Taibbis

How does it feel to be a second rate Ari Fleischer? Apologia is all the so-called progress media has left.

Really, these countless apologies for Obama are getting tired.

Your priorities seem a bit out of whack here. Instead of critiquing Taibbi's critique, how about making your own? You seem to have enough evidence for one, and yet, you choose to defend Obama instead.

Soullite is dead on with this one. TAPPED has become the new FOX, just for a much smaller audience.

I was waiting for it all day, Tim's anguished defense of his rich pals. And sure enough......I notice that for all the panting outrage the main point seems to be that he objects to Taibbi's imputations of bad motives and actual corruption and instead thinks that the problem is "group-think and structural influences and the result of a complex interplay of interests and institutions." Which is just a fancy way of describing the problem of "cognitive capture," or runaway crony capitalism dominating our government, that Simon Johnson has so eloquently described at the Baseline Scenario. Whether these guys are consciously corrupt or just think that what's good for them is good for America, I don't give a shit. This wasn't a "structural deficit," it was an $8 trillion dollar asset bubble worsened by speculative investment practices encouraged by guys like Rubin, who gutted Glass-Steagall and opposed every effort like derivatives regulation to get a handle on it. Did we demand equity stakes, force them to reorganize or take a major haircut in exchange for our money after they created this clusterfuck and demanded that we rescue them? No, we didn't, we gave it to them with no strings attached based on the hope that they'd start lending again. Have they? Nope. So, a massive giveaway, engineered by administration officials with major financial, professional, and personal stakes in the outcome, followed by a financial "reform" effort underway that hasn't done anything yet and that even Tim admits is compromised, and Tim thinks Matt is some kind of paranoid lunatic to question it? OK, whatever.

3 comments say you are a douchebag, tim.

let's make it four, shall we ?

More apologies. Most of your critiques of Taibbi are irrelevant or barely make a dent in Taibbi's narrative. Read your own text again: you call the CFPA 'somewhat compromised', reaffirm that Karen Kornbluh has been shipped off to Siberia, etc. I'm tired of so-called progressives tamping down on outrage with these strained apologies. This is the time for populism.

Good stuff, thanks for critique!

"Did we demand equity stakes? . . . No, we didn't."

What are you talking about? We own 30% of Citigroup. We own 80% of AIG, and the only reason we didn't take over the whole company was because then AIG's debt would have had to be accounted for as part of the government debt. We nationalized Fannie and Freddie. Citigroup has been forced to sell off huge parts of itself, while the banks in total were forced to raise $120 billion in private capital, massively diulting existing shareholder stakes. And on top of all that, the government actually made money on the bank part of the bailout. That's an exceptional outcome, given that the global economy appeared to be on the verge of completely melting down.

There was a gentleman who moved from Iran to the US twenty years ago on Washington Journal yesterday who said, "Since he's been in the US he has never seen a president treated the way President Obama is treated. President Obama intelligence is so far ahead of most Americans that they cannot comprehend his thinking". I agree.

If you want to know how hackers hack into computers systems, wouldn't you want to hire a hacker? I would think the same thing would apply to Wall Street. American history tell us, when our financial system was overhauled, Joe Kennedy was hire to do it.

Roosevelt appointment Joe Kennedy as Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Franklin Roosevelt called Joe to Washington to clean up the securities industry, somebody asked FDR why he had tapped such a crook. "Takes one to catch one," replied Roosevelt.

Use you head Americans for something other than a doormat and stop believing everything you read or hear without further investigation. Especially, when most of these pundits are offering opinions and have no real insight on subject matter.

Facts are the core of every good story/analysis. Like it or not, Taibbi got a lot of his facts wrong. That's a problem. Would he have come to a different conclusion had he cited facts vs. his version of them? Unlikely. That's a problem, too.

Use you head Americans for something other than a doormat and stop believing everything you read or hear without further investigation. Especially, when most of these pundits are offering opinions and have no real insight on subject matter.

Like, um, you?

American history tell us, when our financial system was overhauled, Joe Kennedy was hired to do it.

The problem is that today, no one Obama has tapped is looking at an overhaul, which IS necessary. This crew is simply giving us more of the same.

Doing the work is hard. But if you want to make a dent, you have to do it.

So how about getting started on that, Tim?

Hollow critique.

Is it disconcerting that employees of the financial industry make a ton of money? Yes. Is it the revolving door between Washington and Wall Street problematic? Yes. Does the Administration take it too easy on the banks? Absolutely.

That's the basic thrust of the story.

Wow. Scott may be onto something. As for the rest of the posters thus far, calling someone a "douche" for their position on a matter, not surprisingly makes you look like a bit of a douche yourself. Thanks for the constructive input. *shakes head*

gotta wonder whether taibbi has gone undercover to post the above comments or that these are real people - and thus by definition, clueless douchebags.

tim, here's one reader who has nothing but kudos for fact checking taibbi - who is a pretentious little shit.

apparently, the commenters are having a bad day because you're throwing facts in their face, which obviously is hardly fair. after all, we just got through with eight years of make-believe "reasons" to rationalize incredibly inept policy making.

keep keeping it real, bro!

In a lot of your critiques, I didn't even see critique! It seems like you disagree with the word choice or phrasing of Taibbi in most cases, in lame analyses like that Obama hired Geithner, not anyone else. But then you admit that the guy Taibbi was putting forth as a pivotal proponent of Geithner actually HELPED WITH THE VETTING! Obviously the President chooses the Treasury secretary after the input of others. I don't think Taibbi alleges that Obama is, you know, doling out his powers to subordinates.

This "critique" is a lame ass attempt to whitewash for the moneyed whores in our administration.

TF misses the forest for the trees, IMHO, namely we are ruled by the team of Rubins.

Re: Joe Kennedy, yes it takes a thief to catch one, but it also takes a thief to enable other thieves.

By the way, TF is right about Goolsbee -- he has not been marginalized. And Taibbi was wrong that AG is some kind of liberal; he's actually pretty centrist.

What a lame fact check. A couple actual corrections, but mostly just opinion and nuance. Smells more like jealousy of Taibbi's success and his writing style. And quit defending Obama if he it's not warranted!! Is he functioning like you thought he would when you voted for him? For me only about 50%!

"He doesn't mention the efforts of the Chamber of Commerce or the Financial Services Roundtable"

Yeah. What the fuck is up with Taibbi?

Great fact check! Just yesterday I was emailing with Mr. Taibbi pointing out some of these same errors. I just emailed him this piece, I'll see what he says...

Probably one of Matt's best work. Real journalism.

Not a partisan hack that supported Obama.

Happy Holidays heathens!

That was an excellent take down of the glaring errors in the Taibbi piece. Some of your points could be construed as argumentative, but when Taibbi can't get his Rubins right, that should lend credence to the fact that his piece was not fact checked before publication.

As always, though, when you're lazy and can't think of anything, always call someone a douche. It's the calling card of the new left and proof they are running away from having to live in a reality-based world.

"His connection to Obama is through their time together on the Harvard Law Review, not through Rubin."

Come on. Do you think it's a mere coincidence that Froman a) worked for Rubin, b) went to school with Obama, c) was "a high-ranking executive at Citigroup," and d) was tapped (heh) to help form Obama's economic team, which wonder of wonders just happened to become infested with former protege's and associates of Robert Rubin?

I'll give you the Jamie Rubin conflation for now, maybe Taibbi did get that one wrong (or maybe he didn't, since James S. was working with Hillary and James P. was working "unofficially" with Obama, according to you, and Taibbi's article is about Obama not Hillary).

Austan Goolsbee wasn't on the transition team, so he indeed "didn't make the cut" to be on it; which is what Taibbi said. It's somewhat irrelevant whether it was by Goolsbee's own choice or not; the point is, he was not on the team and he was replaced with Wall Street insiders.

You agree with Taibbi on Kornbluh, so I don't get why that's somehow an egregious error on Taibbi's part.

Geithner's hiring may have been long expected, but it wasn't an accomplished fact until after he was actually named; presumably after signoff (if not outright recommendation) from the economic transition team- which was led by Froman. Now it may be true that Obama made the final decision (indeed I would hope he did), but Froman was undeniably in a position to promote Geithner regardless. It looks bad even if he didn't have to twist the President's arm very hard or at all. And how do you know he didn't?

It's good to hear that Jacob Lew is responsible for operations, not policy; how do you know that, though? Also, the fact remains that he is "a former Citi colleague of Rubin's." It looks bad.

It's great that Gensler is fighting with Cantwell on the side of the angels on derivatives regulation; the fact remains that he is "a former Goldman banker who worked under Rubin in the Clinton White House." And just how successful has his fighting been? I haven't heard of new derivatives regulation; instead I'm hearing in the news that Wall Streeters are already coming up with new ways to reinflate the bubble with new and improved derivatives. Is Gensler doing a "heckuva job?"

"To my knowledge, Rubin has not been involved with policymaking efforts." No, he just has been the mentor and colleague of almost all of the administration's high-level policy makers. Of course that means he's had zero influence on them...

I don't see anything here that directly refutes Taibbi's allegations in a provable way; it's just a bunch of hand-waving on your part. I'm convinced that the revolving door between Wall Street and the federal government is in full operation. Goldman Sachs, Robert Rubin, and their Wall Street minions and cronies are setting economic policy. That's not a good thing, and I'm glad Taibbi is reporting on it. If you have some verifiable refutations to present, let's see them.

Taken as a whole, your article does nothing do diminish Taibbi's article. Why did you bother?

Barry Ritholtz @ The Big Picture agrees with Taibbi and sez "yer a wanker, tim".

When Did Obama Sellout To Wall Street?

Today’s must read MSM article comes to us via Rolling Stone: Matt Taibbi’s takedown of how the Obama White House has been corrupted by Wall Street insiders — Obama’s Big Sellout.

I have been calling the President “Barack W. Obama” for some time; Obama’s Big Sellout squares up with my views of his economic team as more of the same economic policies of the 43rd president.

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/12/did-obama-sellout-to-wall-street/

white people screwed this country up. they should all be deported back to europe, gotdamn idiot.

What a bunch of incredibly obnoxious comments. I hope someday you guys realize that the only thing separating you internet leftists from the conservative bloggers you despise is your lack of overt racism. Otherwise you're exactly as idiotic.

Great article. I couldnt agree more. Its interesting how Obama critics dont really seem to be interested in real facts. They have an agenda and if facts get in the way, they simply ignore them.

I don't see anything here that directly refutes Taibbi's allegations in a provable way; it's just a bunch of hand-waving on your part.

Right, other than the glaring factual errors, the misinformed innuendo about impending doom, and the stuff about things that aren't possible, it really is a bunch of "hand waving."

Ladies and gentlemen, American Prospect has officially jumped the shark!

When you're bringing up the Geithner-never-worked-in-a-bank strawman, and calling Larry Summers a leftist, then you have officially become a propaganda tool of the plutocracy.

Reminds me of the People's Daily in the People's Republic of China. Can anyone say, "mouthpiece"?

The only legitimate criticism of Taibbi's piece here is that there is confusion as to which Jamie Rubin advised Obama. The rest of this piece is just...embarrassing.

Two points by Taibbi that I would be interested in hearing your thoughts.

Why isn't the requirement that the banks simplify their products still included? That seemed eminently sensible to me.

Taibbi also talks about gutting of efforts to regulate credit default swaps. Is the bill winding its way through the House likely to address this concern?

In about the third paragraph of Taibbi's article, he admits that he actually has no idea whatsoever what motivated Obama to make the appointments he is so critical of. But then Taibbi goes on to speculate about that anyway, and call him a sellout. That is not good journalism. That is just rumor-mongering and conspiracy theorizing. Thank you for fact-checking the article.

I would also point out that before we start criticizing the President's economic program, let's remember back to a year ago when the entire financial system was collapsing. If someone had told you back then that the new administration would have restored the solvency of the banking system, that the banks would be scrambling to pay back their bailouts early, that the housing market would stabilize by summer 2009, that the stock market would be up 50% from its low point in the winter of 2009, and that the economy would be growing again in less than a year, I bet most people would have said that would be too much to hope for. But all that has come true.

Are we supposed to be upset that people on Wall Street are making money again? I'm not. That is what Wall Street is supposed to do. The alternative of Wall Street losing money would be much, much worse.

Sorry but Taibbi is a left-wing conspiracist. He's just another Alex Jones

now, here is a critique worth reading, tim. take a lesson from this, pal.

http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2009/12/matt-taibbi-obamas-big-sellout.html

Matt Taibbi is one of the few commentators in the mainstream media who is not worried about ‘access’ and has, therefore, been free to write much more critically about the economic crisis and reform efforts on Wall Street.

... it is obvious that two things have occurred as a result of this ‘Washington insider’ bias. First, there has been no real reform. Insiders are likely to defend the status quo for the simple reason that they and those with whom they associate are the ones who represent the status quo in the first place. What happens when a company is nationalized or declared bankrupt is instructive; here, new management must be installed to prevent the old management from covering up past mistakes or perpetuating errors that led to the firms demise. The same is true in government.

That no ‘real’ reform was coming was obvious, even by June when I wrote a brief note on the fake reform agenda. It is even more obvious with the passage of time and the lack of any substantive reform in health care.

Second, Obama’s stacking his administration with insiders has been very detrimental to his party. I imagine he did this as a way to overcome any worries about his own inexperience and to break with what was seen as a major factor in Bill Clinton’s initial failings. While I am an independent, I still have enough political antennae to know that taking established politicians out of incumbent positions (Joe Biden, Janet Napolitano, Hillary Clinton, Rahm Emanuel, Kathleen Sebelius or Tim Kaine) jeopardizes their seat. So, the strategy of stacking his administration has not only created a status quo bias, but it has also weakened his party.

Are we supposed to be upset that people on Wall Street are making money again? I'm not. That is what Wall Street is supposed to do. The alternative of Wall Street losing money would be much, much worse.

Nice strawman. Geithner et al. ran the economy into the ground and taxpayers bailed out Wall Street.

Taibbi gets a few things wrong and you criticize the author for pointing it out? I guess you guys are the apologist.

Nice to see all the tiedyed teabaggers from the Nader wing screech from the sidelines when inconvenient facts get mentioned. Taibbi made the allegations - he should prove them with actual facts. Sheet, half the comments are basically, "Yer BIIIIIIIASED" in response to one of their gods actually being criticized.

Progressives don't need your kind. You're space fillers, like the entire conservative movement. Get.

"In about the third paragraph of Taibbi's article, he admits that he actually has no idea whatsoever what motivated Obama to make the appointments he is so critical of. But then Taibbi goes on to speculate about that anyway, and call him a sellout."

No, Taibbi makes a very convincing case that by appointing a claque of disciples and colleagues of Wall Street insider Robert Rubin, he created (or rather, continued) the incestuous and corrupt alliance between the government's economic policy apparatus and Wall Street. To the degree that Obama had promised to clean up and re-regulate Wall Street, he sold that promise out almost immediately.

"Thank you for fact-checking the article."

You call that fact-checking?

"Are we supposed to be upset that people on Wall Street are making money again?"

Yes, if they are doing it the same way they were when they almost destroyed the global economy.

Excellent article. Whenever people criticize the Obama admin its always about what they want and not what is actually possible. You know you got them when they don't respond with facts of their own just "douche" or Obamabot or apologist etc

[i]What a lame fact check. A couple actual corrections, but mostly just opinion and nuance. Smells more like jealousy of Taibbi's success and his writing style.[/i]

Matt Taibbi's style? Let's see, a ton of innuendo (Yeah, we could be $23T in debt -- if everything falls apart at the same time! Just like we could be 3 miles underwater if the polar icecaps melted tomorrow!), throw in a ton of pre-determined conclusions and a boatload of profanity (clusterfuck! Asshole!)...

Reminds me of a confused, caffeinated, shock-the-world-with-my-raw-intellect college freshman...

Be interesting to see where this rad dude ends up.

Taibbi is playing the rubes, selling a story that he knows a particular audience wants, and ignoring or massaging facts that contradict that story.

His narrative is "Obama has sold out to Wall Street!" If you believe that narrative, you'll like Taibbi's work. If you actually care about facts and understanding how the world works, you probably won't be a big fan of Taibbi.

Put another way -- Taibbi's fans are those who care mostly about "the satisfying purity of indignation" rather than a more complex story.

Wow, what a blistering rebuttal. You really tore Taibbi up good. Ha ha.

A largely liberal readership has savaged Tim Fernholz on his own blog. Are you all paying attention? We are fed up with Obama's continuation of crony capitalism. The Democrats are going to be routed in the 2010 elections unless you do something about the Wall Street problem.

Also, to those rubes maintaining that Jamie Rubin is the only factual error -- there are two big gigantic honking ones that Tim points out here. #1 is Taibbi's repeated ludicrous assertion that the bailout "could" cost $23.7 trillion, an insane and stupid misrepresentation that anyone with a passing familiarity with numbers will recognize is absurd.

#2 is Taibbi's (genuine or pretended) ignorance of resolution authority in the regulatory reform legislation. Do you want a big insurance company or other conglomerate to fail someday and take down the entire financial system? If so, kill Obama's regulatory reform bill! Taibbi is on your side!

PS- Arianna is playing you rubes too. Look into her history for two seconds -- do you know who she is? She certainly wouldn't pass the purity test Taibbi applies to the Obama economic team.

I don't think this critiques changes the fact that too many of th epeople involved in the government's attempts to handle wall street are very much a part of the wall street culture. Imagine for instance that everyone at the FDA had at one time or another worked for Merck. Wouldn't we think it necessary that some people have a loud voice from outside the big pharma community? and wouldn't we be especially upset if Merck , even above the other big pharma companies , managed to keep getting sweet government deals that made no sense to american taxpayers?

These critiques of Tabbai may be valid, although they seem to me to be awfully picky, but they do not obscure the story he is writing. Wall Street has too much influence over the governments regulation of wall street, and particularly goldman sachs has too large a voice of all the voices that wall street possesses.

Taibbi's fans are those who care mostly about "the satisfying purity of indignation" rather than a more complex story.

It doesn't seem all that inherently complex to me, Anon. Seems pretty simple, in fact. How complicated is it to look at the facts here? Obama promised to clean up Wall Street. We elected him partly on that basis. Then he appointed a bunch of rich Wall Street insiders to be his economic team, and instead of cleaning it up they just shoveled billions and billions of newly-printed dollars at it. Dollars that we will have to make good through our taxes. In return we get, what? Higher unemployment, lavish bonuses paid to executives who caused the problems in the first place, and squealing about how any regulation of executive compensation will hurt our ability to retain talent; the very same "talent" who got us into this mess.

Is that somehow too simplistic a view? OK, tell me what nuances I'm missing. Tell me what makes turning over our economic policy to Wall Street people such a good idea. Because I don't see it.

care about facts and understanding how the world works. And I think Obama sold out to Wall Street. The fact that Geithner and Summers are the heaviest hitters, and that despite 10% unemployment we don't have a serious jobs programs in the works, establishes that. The rest are details, I hope Taibbi got them right but I don't expect perfection in political analysis from Rolling Stone, to be honest. He struck a nerve in Obama's liberal defenders which is what this post seems to be about.

His narrative is "Obama has sold out to Wall Street!" If you believe that narrative, you'll like Taibbi's work. If you actually care about facts and understanding how the world works, you probably won't be a big fan of Taibbi.

Most of the errors that Fernholz points to are minor, incidental to the main thrust of the narrative that Taibbi is spinning--but by that very token, it wouldn't have hurt Taibbi's narrative to get them right in the first place. So why didn't he?

One is left with the impression that Taibbi is either sloppily lazy (a common problem in journalists in all venues) or doesn't think that facts are important (a common problem in pundits in all venues). Neither of those makes his case more convincing.

Thank you, Tim.

It seems harder and harder these days to find accurate and rational reporting. I value your journalism and ethics attached to it.

#1 is Taibbi's repeated ludicrous assertion that the bailout "could" cost $23.7 trillion, an insane and stupid misrepresentation that anyone with a passing familiarity with numbers will recognize is absurd.

So TARP Inspector General Neil Barofsky, who is the one who presented that 23.7 trillion figure in his report to Congress, is insane and stupid?

I'll tell you what's stupid. It's NOT planning to cover the worst possible contingency. If you focus on the "rosy scenario" then Murphy's Law is almost certain to bite you in the ass.

#2 is Taibbi's (genuine or pretended) ignorance of resolution authority in the regulatory reform legislation.

Explain how his analysis shows ignorance.

It seems like your criticizing the tone of the article more than its thesis. Most of the counterpoints do not contradict Taibbi's article but merely add a sense of nuance.

Is this piece a joke? In all your bullet points only the first one is remotely factual. Everything else is subject to interpretation, or is merely a rebuttal argument. Many of your arguments are so lame I assume they read like parody:

"No, that means we won't be injecting capital into banks anymore. No more buying AIG shares. But if the government loans money to these banks, taxpayers could still get a return on those loans."

This is laughable. When the U.S. Treasury throws a few hundred billion into Wall Street banks it's not "capital" because we're calling it a "loan."

Douchebag.

I haven't read this blog before, but after reading Taibbi's article and then reading this critique (which I think successfully reveals one of Taibbi's most frequent vulnerabilities--his tendency to create straw men that simplify complex problems, and weaken otherwise insightful articles), I'm most fascinated by the responses posted here.

It seems that the criticisms of Fernholz's challenges to Taibbi's article (and to a lesser extent, defenses of Fernholz's challenges), amount to little more than battles over grand narrative: whose grand narratives do we find more appealing and intuit to be more accurate? And of course, in the end, where one lands on that score probably tells us far more about ourselves than about the steps the Obama administration has taken with regard to the banking industry.

In other words, it's an only slightly more informed rendition of the tribalism endemic to teabaggers and birthers--folks more invested in aligning themselves with a particular side than they are in the complicated activity of a sober analysis--one that inevitably results in far fewer heroes and villains, and far more tales of mixed motives, tactical errors, and mundane limitations of human knowledge.

Of course, my saying this allows people to position me as anything from an apologist for criminal bankers to just another a-hole sitting on his high horse. But so be it, it's just what I've noticed.

I have to agree with liberalrob's comments. Despite Taibbi possibly confusing two Rubin's with such similar names, it doesnt change the collusion of the administration with Wall Street and the fact that Obama staked his cabinet and advisory team with insiders.

Progressives don't need your kind. You're space fillers, like the entire conservative movement. Get.

Loses the thread!

And the world, then, sure as hell doesn't need the Obamabot Fauxgressive you've proven to be. How about you let the grownups talk, sonny? Look, got yer nose.

"The problems Taibbi tries to describe aren't some kind of ridiculous cabal. They come from group-think and structural influences and as a result of a complex interplay of interests and institutions; the policies they produce aren't either good or evil, they're in need of analysis to determine which help regular people, which hurt them and how to change the latter into the former."

This is just wishy-washy commentary from a dispossessed liberal-progressive. Your analysis is below par, sir. And you hardly cut into the meat of the matter.

Taibbi is a joke. His Goldman Sachs rantings were dismantled too, line by line almost, leaving even less factually accurate points than in his Obama rants. He's a lightweight who does as little research as possible and prefers instead to shoot his mouth off and insult people gratuitously. Later for him.

Most of these are just meaningless technical objections. If you are hellbent on nitpicking, sure you could come up with "errors" like this.

None of this addresses his primary concerns about the regulatory capture of Congress by big banks. Way to sideline the discussion, Tim.

I am amazed that almost nobody sees the most basic flaw in Taibbi's piece: Even before you fact-check, the piece is chock-full of non-journalistic bias and opinion. Because of that, and that alone, it is not trustworthy material to consume.

I am much more likely to believe critiques like this one as a result.

Hmmm, I don't know why Taibbi's article sound reasonable and this reads like an apologist trying to nitpick the opposition. I think the most telling point with Fernholz and his supporters here is a snarky petty ad hominem attack against Taibbi.

The larger facts do show a disquieting closeness between the white house and the source of the problem. Does it take an expert or a genius to worry about foxes in the hen house??

Here's the bottom line:

In capitalism, there should be no such thing as too big to fail. Too big to fail = too big to exist. And yet, despite the fact that these banks nearly destroyed our country's economy and sent us into a huge recession, nobody--certainly not Obama--has done anything to enact meaningful reform against them.

Taibbi's article accurately points out that the Obama administration is staffed by former employees of these too big to fail banks, and it is hard to imagine anything is going to change.

I for one, will not vote for Obama (or any congressman) again who does not attempt meaningful reform, and I plan on doing everything I can to convince other people to do the same.

I hope HuffPo realizes what a mistake they made by linking to this lame blog.

What's your argument again? That billions of dollars thrown at the casino banks was "no injection of capital"? LMFAO!

All your counterpoints sound nitpicky to me, Tom. Yes, that's right. Bash Taibbi because you don't like his word choices. You'd love to see America crash, wouldn't you?

Keep smooching at the Wall Street bunghole, tool. What's your version of health care reform, die quickly?

I didn't agree with Taibbi on everything he said, also didn't know enough about the intricate personnel matters nor care, but felt he channeled the frustration I've had with the Administration's economic policies.

But I do object to the way he made it sound like Obama's advisers and officials PURPOSELY mess things up to enrich their Wall Street buddies. Because, first, even if it's true, it's impossible to prove; second, I suspect it's more probable that these people descended from the "Rubin school of economics" and are simply too cozy to financial industry to be impartial.

Also wish Taibbi didn't use so much foul language. He's becoming more and more like Michale Moore, hence the left's equivalent of O'Reily etc. We don't need people fuming with froth who distort facts to make our argument. There's no need for that, facts are good enough.

Tim says in his post: "Sidenote, I thought it was Goldman Sachs we all had to be worried about?"

So Taibbi slamming it to Bob Rubin and his acolytes is somehow missing the point of how alums of Goldman Sacks are running the show and rejecting out of hand any thoughts of changing the Wall Street way of doing business?

Sigh...

Bob Rubin spent 26 years w/Goldman Sachs -- the last two as a Co-Chairman. His legendary tenure as Secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton, however, gives him much more clout than the many other Goldman Sachs alumni in the Obama administration.

You did a nice job of picking at the fringes of some insufficiently sourced Taibbi allegations . But that's all you did. Taibbi's article nails the problem.

Taibbi Strikes Again

The gist of Taibbi's piece is that Obama came in with a powerful populist team, a grass roots mandate for change, and an economy in collapse that paved the way for new policies that would benefit the middle class similar to what FDR faced in his early years. But instead of capitalizing on that rare opportunity, making the most of a bad situation, and dancing with the ones that brung him, Obama chose as some of his top economic advisers the same people who presided over or engineered the greatest economic meltdown since the Great Depression. The results so far include We the People writing hundred billion-dollar welfare checks to the wealthiest, most powerful people in the nation so that they can continue screwing up and screwing us.

If that was supposed to be a trade, what exactly did the WH get in return? The insurance industry, huge beneficiaries of the bailouts and polices, still went after the best parts of HCR tooth and nail, they bought the Senate, they encouraged people to carry around signs showing Obama in full Hitler regalia, and they killed the PO. Cap-n-Trade was watered down to the point of questionable effectiveness. Financial reform hasn't even emerged yet, but there's worry it will be fucked up every which way. Wall Street and industry titans are whining about taxes on their zillion dollar salaries and bonuses as loud as ever while working to obstruct badly needed government relief or jobs programs for We the Victims at every turn.

Democrats don't have to worry about a guy like me voting for the GOP anytime soon. I imagine that's the same for most of us. But they better be worried about people like us not volunteering or donating as much, or urging others to vote for them in the midterm elections with all our heart. Because that's exactly where we're heading for now. And if that's where we end up next Fall it's going to be shit like Taibbi wrote about that helped cause it.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/11/813110/-Taibbi-Strikes-Again

Taibbi Strikes Again

The gist of Taibbi's piece is that Obama came in with a powerful populist team, a grass roots mandate for change, and an economy in collapse that paved the way for new policies that would benefit the middle class similar to what FDR faced in his early years. But instead of capitalizing on that rare opportunity, making the most of a bad situation, and dancing with the ones that brung him, Obama chose as some of his top economic advisers the same people who presided over or engineered the greatest economic meltdown since the Great Depression. The results so far include We the People writing hundred billion-dollar welfare checks to the wealthiest, most powerful people in the nation so that they can continue screwing up and screwing us.

If that was supposed to be a trade, what exactly did the WH get in return? The insurance industry, huge beneficiaries of the bailouts and polices, still went after the best parts of HCR tooth and nail, they bought the Senate, they encouraged people to carry around signs showing Obama in full Hitler regalia, and they killed the PO. Cap-n-Trade was watered down to the point of questionable effectiveness. Financial reform hasn't even emerged yet, but there's worry it will be f***ed up every which way. Wall Street and industry titans are whining about taxes on their zillion dollar salaries and bonuses as loud as ever while working to obstruct badly needed government relief or jobs programs for We the Victims at every turn.

Democrats don't have to worry about a guy like me voting for the GOP anytime soon. I imagine that's the same for most of us. But they better be worried about people like us not volunteering or donating as much, or urging others to vote for them in the midterm elections with all our heart. Because that's exactly where we're heading for now. And if that's where we end up next Fall it's going to be sh*t like Taibbi wrote about that helped cause it.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/11/813110/-Taibbi-Strikes-Again

Small hint: If you're going for the tactic of marginalising your opponent (you used both "conspiracy theorist" and "conspiracy theories" in the first paragraph), you may want to stay away from childish obtuseness such as "I thought it was ___ we had to be worried about".

Unlike FDR, President Obama did not have the luxury(?) of restarting a collapsed economy; the mess left by BushCo hadn't gotten us that far. Yet.
Therefore, there was less sense of urgency to get things restarted and more of a sense to keep things going. For that one goes to those who run the financial sector durnig so-called normal times. And those people happened to either a) be some of the those who helped create the mess or b) were people who knew and worked with those who had created the mess.
The attempt to portray the economic measures taken/not take by the Obama administration as some sort of "conspiracy" (there is no other way to read Taibbi's screed) harms his attempt to show how closely this administration is tied to those who created the financial melt-down. Once a person reaches a certain eminence in ANY field, they tend to, not only work with many others, but also become acquaintances, possibly even friends.
And when you need assistance in your field of expertise, who do you first think of? Someone completely outside your usual circle? Or those with whom you are acquainted and have worked with?
The administration needed to get personnel with new ideas and who weren't compromised by close association with the perpetrators of the calamity. For that they should be held accountable. Unfortunately, Mr. Taibbi doesn't really do that.

Matt Taibbi makes a great point about Obama being a terrible President. He's pretty much convinced me to vote Republican next time.

I can't believe most of the comments here. This was a great piece and Taibbi is functionally retarded. Anyone who disagrees is what is wrong with this country.

I read through the first half dozen points in your piece before giving up. They were either substance-free rhetorical statements of opinion or trivial or - worst of all - highly misleading.

In the later category I would for instance place your blithe assertion that Obama's economic advisors are centered around people who worked in the last Democratic administration rather than them being mere Rubin acolytes. In fact - they were both. Rubin brought in both Summers and Geithner when he ran things under Clinton.

More to the point, history has shown both Geithner and Summers deregulatory actions at that time to have been hugely damaging to America. In short your arguments are specious and they are not made in good faith - you have an agenda and are using nothing but rhetorical tricks to push it. I doubt you will fool many.

Though Taibbi is guilty of some overstatement/exaggeration/oversimplification at times, I for one am glad he is on this story. It's a story that needs to be told, because it points to some very disturbing trends in government (the questionable if not outright corrupting influence of special interests on government decisionmaking. Obama promised in the campaign to try to rid Washington of this corruption, but so far this promise has been belied by his actions in office).

Given that Fernholz admits:

"Is it disconcerting that employees of the financial industry make a ton of money? Yes. Is it the revolving door between Washington and Wall Street problematic? Yes. Does the Administration take it too easy on the banks? Absolutely."

what is his deal exactly?

If the main point if his critique is not in the thrust of Taibbi's argument (which he seems to largely agree with), but in the manner in which Taibbi goes about making his point, why is he expending so much energy atatacking someone with whom he mostly agrees? Unless Fernholz is trying to demonstrate what a tough, hard-nosed editor he would be, I see little reason for him to have written this piece. It seems to me he could put his energies to better use by addressing the problems he raises (and I quote him again):

"Is it disconcerting that employees of the financial industry make a ton of money? Yes. Is it the revolving door between Washington and Wall Street problematic? Yes. Does the Administration take it too easy on the banks? Absolutely."

Fernholz should focus on seeking ways to rectify some of these problems.

I was going to write a fact check to Fernholz's fact check, but someone far more qualified than I beat me to it:

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/12/11/fernholz-vs-taibbi/

Quite well put, particularly that last line. Fernholz loses this one.

Thank you. Many people have come forth with the same critiques - it looks like Taibbi did a rush-job and didn't check his facts.

Taibbi isn't a serious journalist. He's a paranoid whacko.

As the pirate said before his execution by Alexander the Great, "If you rob one person, you're a thief. If you rob a thousand, you're a king."

A modern update : "If you swindle one person, you're a con man. If you swindle a thousand, you're responding to group-think and structural influences as a result of a complex interplay of interests and institutions."

Anybody who dismisses the populist anger regarding this bailout I think does so at their own peril. People are pissed off and with good reason.

I know I'm not buying the economic recovery story that some are trying to sell to the public right now.

Sure, Wall Street has recovered (with a huge infusion of cash courtesy of the American taxpayer, how could they not?), but there's been precious little upside for anyone else so far, and alot of people out there are hurting.

What with banks not lending, unemployment at 10 %, and the housing market far from recovered (it may very well be in for some nasty aftershocks), I think talk of an economic recovery is premature, and frankly a bit insulting to the people out there who have been waylaid by this crisis.

To put it another way, if we are in a recovery right now, the "recovery" we're experiencing is so anemic that it's for all intents and purposes a meaningless recovery.

Remember when Bush was in office and Wall St. was flying high and the experts couldn't figure out why the American people had such a pessimistic outlook on the economy? That was due to the fact that the Bush admin. and the MSM were both completely out of touch with the lives of regular people.

The same thing seems to be happening here. Wall Street is booming again, so everybody cheer, the economy's back! Except people are still hurting, there aren't any jobs, banks aren't lending, and homes are still being foreclosed.

People can see that the bill of goods that's being sold to them (economic recovery must start with Wall St. first, and then it will trickle down to everybody else) is not what's actually happening. And they see the banks getting bailed out via taxpayer money and then turning around and handing out huge bonuses to their execs. Of course people are going to be pissed off - why wouldn't they be?

It makes look Obama look out of touch, if not outright corrupt, that he is so disconnected from the reality of the situation here.

If he doesn't change course soon, and ditch Geithner and Summers in favor of some people who care more about main Street and less about the pockets of people on Wall Street, I fear his presidency is in deep trouble.

Nitpicking? Lame? I wonder how many of these Obama bashers voted for him last November? I would suspect that most did...now they are disillusioned with how Obama is governing...but he is governing as he campaigned. Don't believe me? Go look it up for yourself...will you at least take the time to do that before bashing Obama again?
One more thought...before bashing Obama please think about the alternative...would we be better off with Bush now...or McCain? Democrats need to turn around their thinking and start working toward supporting this administration to win the 2010 elections to maintain the momentum and effect real change in the US.

After reading your article, my thirty years in the financial community as a trader, investor, securities attorney and macro-econ junkie leaves me feeling like you whiffed ... back to the batting cage for some work for you.

One more thought...before bashing Obama please think about the alternative...would we be better off with Bush now...or McCain?

bored now doodling

I wish I could be confident in the good-faith of this article, but comparing Taibbi's Barofsky-derived $23 bail-out price tag to the cost of TARP itself without mentioning and clarifying that TARP is but one of the many loan facilities aggregated into the $23 trilion number undermines my confidence in your intellectual honesty.

If you think the $23 trillion is high, say how high, and why. All the myriad non-TARP government loan facilities extended to the banking sector certainly had costs to the taxpayer -- the opportunity cost of doing something else with the money, the gap between the credit extended and the true realizable value of the mountains of junk collateral accepted by the Fed, etc. A realistic estimate of that would be a useful corrective to Taibbi/Barofsky hyppothetical $23 trillion. Comparing their admittedly alarmist $23 trillion to a conservative estimate of one of its components is just kind of gross.

Why isn't the truth good enough?

"But he’s doing a much better job of making the policy debate relevant to Rolling Stone’s readership than anything Tim Fernholz has ever done." - felix salmon ( from link above )

"RICH DOUCHEBAG HATES CRITICISM OF HIS RICH DOUCHEBAG FRIENDS AND THE SCHEMING POLITICIANS WHO ENABLE AND SHIELD THEM."

Film at 11.

YAWN.

Did I forget to mention that you're a FVCKING DOUCHEBAG, Tim?

No?

Well, it bears repeating.

Sorry your having to endure a barrage of comments from people who have drunk Taibbi's kool aid.

Taibbi is less credible than Orly Taitiz to me and he is much, much more dangerous.

Thank God for your rebuttal.Im sick of Taibbi's whining

A hack from New Republic spewing lies and bullshit about a real reporter. Surprise!

lol.

Two Sentences By Matt Taibbi

In his latest Rolling Stone piece (which you may or may not want to take with a grain of salt), Matt Taibbi distills everything wrong with the Obama administration into two pithy sentences:

The point is that an economic team made up exclusively of callous millionaire-assholes has absolutely zero interest in reforming the gamed system that made them rich in the first place.

There’s no other way to say it: Barack Obama, a once-in-a-generation political talent whose graceful conquest of America’s racial dragons en route to the White House inspired the entire world, has for some reason allowed his presidency to be hijacked by sniveling, low-rent shitheads.

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=12&year=2009&base_name=oh_matt_taibbi#comments

Oh c'mon, let's suck it up and face the truth. Taibbi's facts can be nibbled at until the end of time, but his message is accurate and depressing. Now, with the center having moved so far to the right, are we surprised that the center-left is forced to defend this president? If Obama were delivering some passable simulacrum of what he promised, these discussions wouldn't be happening. Instead, we are left to ponder the meaning of "sold down the river," "taken for a ride," and "could we really have been dumb enough to believe what this guy said?" In answer to that question, yes, we were that dumb, and that desperate, and we're anguished in the aftermath. Republicans campaign as compassionate and then screw the working class to the wall. Democrats campaign as compassionate and then...oh, wait, which distinction was I going to make?

As W said, fool me once, and so forth. Most of us won't use the words "hope" and "change" in quite the same way ever again.

Thanks for the critique. It saved me the work of doing it myself! I like Matt's last piece about Wall Street, but this one veered way too far into the speculation and personality-driven attack that characterizes Fox News, not Rolling Stone.

Liberalbob, you did a great job of taking this piece apart. (I am in awe.)I couldn't help but notice no one answered any of your questions. I wonder why?

Well, taking just a few of your critiques and checking them against Taibbi's piece, I found yours to be the claims that don't hold up.

To take just one: Your claim is that Biden works on "stimulus and jobs", which is somehow a refutation of Taibbi's claim that he doesn't work on financial reform? Now how is that?

A few others I looked at were similarly disingenuous, and your overall tone of condescension, the "Hoo-boy, what a mess!" pose you strike seems not just irritating but unwarranted.

I also love the "kool aid" comments, as if there's some cult of Matt Taibbi that one must belong to in order to not swallow your "corrections" whole.

I look forward to Taibbi's response to this piece, I hope he writes one.

Well, taking just a few of your critiques and checking them against Taibbi's piece, I found yours to be the claims that don't hold up.

To take just one: Your claim is that Biden works on "stimulus and jobs", which is somehow a refutation of Taibbi's claim that he doesn't work on financial reform? Now how is that?

A few others I looked at were similarly disingenuous, and your overall tone of condescension, the "Hoo-boy, what a mess!" pose you strike seems not just irritating but unwarranted.

I also love the "kool aid" comments, as if there's some cult of Matt Taibbi that one must belong to in order to not swallow your "corrections" whole.

I look forward to Taibbi's response to this piece, I hope he writes one.

Who was it that proposed raising the taxes on the rich during the campaign of 2008...now who was that?

Oh yeah, Hillary Clinton.

I don't think the GOP could have planted a better stealth bomb than Obama if they tried. Did they?

Ugh. Seriously. This "critque" doesn't even succeed at refuting any of the points it's criticizing. Half the time it agrees. It's semantic nonsense.

So what does Rahm owe you for this nonsense?

Tim delineates, in detail, about a dozen factual errors in Taibbi's article, and the best response you Obama-Hating so-called progressives can come up with is an attack on HIS character? Well here's my ad hominim response: You're a bunch of douchebags idealogues with no zero credibility and even less discernable worth to viable discourse.

Thanks to hitmen like Taibbi we can all look forward to more polls blaming TARP and the economic mess on Obama.

Amazing, isn't it, the short-term memory of our press and our country?

Who "sold out America"? Obama or Bush?

Tim Fernholz is probably right about these errors of Taibbi. But I sympathize with Taibbi, and it IS a sellout.
Look, 6 weeks before Bush slithered out of Washington the feds finally arrested Bernie Madoff. The Bush SEC was told ITS A PONZI SCHEME for years, why sit there for 8 years THEN arrest him in Dec 2008? Bush actively PROTECTED FINANCIAL CRIMINALS. The Madoff arrest provided cover while Bush did one of the most STUNNING CRIMES IN EARTH'S HISTORY. In Dec 2008 Bush guaranteed trillions of dollars in various investments, an action expressly designed to have THE U.S GOVERNMENT BORROW UNLIMITED AMOUNTS IN ORDER TO PROTECT THE ASSETS OF RICH PEOPLE, if a future economic collapse makes that "necessary." Without any constitutional authority or authority from congress, Bush put the governemnt on the hook for TRILLION$ in future losses. Yes, as Fernholz says, all $23 trillion won't go down the drain. But the criminality of the Bush gang is such that a ridiculous action like this WAS NOT BANNER HEADLINES IN EVEN ONE NEWSPAPER. Yet this edict coud bring down the entire United States. The Obama administration has stood by this Bush guarantee, and many other crooked Bush actions that serve the rich and China. Yes, the Democrats are better than the Republicans, no doubt. The Republicans are 100% corrupt. But when trillions of dollars in gurantees are provided without any law being passed or constitutional authority being invoked, and BOTH parties say nothing, those who DON'T think it a conspiracy are deluded.

One thing that contradicted what I thought I knew is where Taibbi says that Rubin led the fight to deregulate derivatives while in the Clinton White House. I just saw a doc on Brooksley Born and her tenure at the CFTC the impression I came away with was that Rubin fought to prevent them being regulated in the first place. A trivial distinction, perhaps, but it was enough to make me wonder about the accuracy of the rest of the article. After reading your piece, I will be approaching Mr. Taibbi's work with a lot more skepticism.

His narrative is "Obama has sold out to Wall Street!" If you believe that narrative, you'll like Taibbi's work. If you actually care about facts and understanding how the world works, you probably won't be a big fan of Taibbi.

Most of the errors that Fernholz points to are minor, incidental to the main thrust of the narrative that Taibbi is spinning--but by that very token, it wouldn't have hurt Taibbi's narrative to get them right in the first place. So why didn't he?

One is left with the impression that Taibbi is either sloppily lazy (a common problem in journalists in all venues) or doesn't think that facts are important (a common problem in pundits in all venues). Neither of those makes his case more convincing.

The moment I realized there would be no prosecution of the previous administration I came to the same conclusion that Matt came to....they are all protecting each other's asses. They are all FRIENDS. Really people, can't we just get along?

Yo, Timmy Boy go tell your good buddies at the WH that I won't be voting for Hopey McChangey again regardless of your criticism of Matt Taibbi's piece. When Hopey McChangey can explain to me why autoworker union contracts can be turned into kindle but AIG executive contracts are sacrosanct, then I may consider voting for my local Democratic rep.(let Rahmbo know it's a purple seat.) I happen to like Matt Taibbi because he talks about how expensive his own health insurance is. He may be making decent money with this article s but he's not a gazillionaire with health insurance from a government job or a bigtime corporate gig or rich to the point where he doesn't have to worry about the cost of it. I wasn't expecting a progressive presidency with Hopey but when he can do a bang up job fighting for the Afghan war and do a crappy job fighting for good healthcare reform, I know what he cares about and it ain't main street.

Tim delineates, in detail, about a dozen factual errors in Taibbi's article

I look forward to reading that. When does it come out?

Wow - quite amazing to see all of these comments attacking the author for his well-thought-out, well-researched article pointing all of Taibbi's factual errors. I can just imagine them with their eyes screwed shut yelling LALALAICANTHEARYOU with their hands over their ears, trying to cling their warped reality in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

When I read these comments, I can understand why Sarah "Facts Don't Matter" Palin is so popular in America. Sheesh.

I reviewed your points by which you call Taibbi's piece a factual mess and a conspiracy theory. Here's what I found out -
1)Jamie Rubin – You got that one correct. Taibbi indeed mixed up his Rubins but the error is only where Taibbi calls Rubin, Bob Rubin's son.
2)Austan Goolsbee – Taibbi is putting forth his allegation that Goolsbee does not have as much influence over policy making as others who are in positions within the White House. We can never know what happens in personal circles and meetings with the President, who advises him on what, but we can always conclude who is more influential when the President makes a decision. By far, the progressive side of Obama's team has been unable to make much of a difference which we all agree. This one goes to Taibbi
3)Karen Kornbluh – A US Ambassador to an organization which does – The Organisation provides a setting where governments compare policy experiences, seek answers to common problems, identify good practice and coordinate domestic and international policies.
They provide “advice” to governments around the world on economic policies and Karen is the US ambassador to it. Again, Taibbi's claim is that Karen Kornbluh didn't get a job which will influence US domestic policy. This one also goes to Taibbi.
4)Michael Froman – Tim says, “His connection to Obama is through their time together on the Harvard Law Review, not through Rubin.” Yes, indeed. But when did Taibbi say that it was through Rubin?
Taibbi says, “Leading the search for the president's new economic team was his close friend and Harvard Law classmate Michael Froman...” So what is your point here, Tim? Taibbi again makes the connection that Froman worked for Rubin just like many others in Obama's staff and have pushed the same agenda which is diametrically opposite to the “change” platform that Obama fed everybody during the campaign. Taibbi made the big blunder of mixing up the Rubins and connecting them to Froman's assistance in hiring Bob Rubin's son. I would like Taibbi to clarify on that one.
5)Timothy Geithner – Of course, Obama hired Geithner. Obama is the “decider”, remember? Now who pushed the appointment of Geithner and what influenced Obama's decision can never be known by anybody. Taibbi never mentioned that Geithner worked for a bank. When you write a rebuttal, you should make sure you're only mentioning details where the original author erred.
6)Jacob Lew – He did work for Citigroup. Taibbi doesn't really mention what Jacob Lew does for Obama except that he is trying to put the pieces together for his narrative which alleges that they're all part of the same gang
7)Gary Gensler – Taibbi is alleging that the US government is creating policies which give an appearance of reform while key instruments within those measures are being blunted by Wall Street players. You say that Gensler, who worked to keep CDO's outside of government regulation at the end of the 90's has become a born-again reform supporter and is doing exactly the opposite. I have no problems with that assumption either but its also an opinion just like Taibbi's and hardly an error on Taibbi's part.
8)Jared Benstein – Again, you “opine” that Biden has taken a stand on economic policy making. Of course he has, that's his job. But we all know Biden was not selected by Obama for his economic policymaking abilities. Besides, would you prefer being directly involved with your boss or his assistant when it comes to decision making?
9)Rubin built Obama's White House – You didn't really put together a rebuttal...just an opinion. The Obama White House is full of people who either worked for Rubin or are his protege or worked with him. This should be alarming for “real” progressives since Rubin is considered as one of the worst offenders of the economic crisis. Okay...let's move on!
10)TARP and $23.7 trillion government backing – You point out that “IF” all of those loans fail, government will have to pay that much money. Well, insurance does work on the principles of maximum payout scenarios. You're basically saying that is absolutely okay to guarantee loans worth an amount that we cannot afford since we know we will never be asked to cough up all the cash. If you're asked to step up as a guarantor for a friend's loan, will the bank give your friend a loan which is way beyond your repayment ability? My opinion – it is not OKAY to back anything which we can't afford especially if it involves gambling or speculation.
Direct bank bailouts are much less compared to the insurance that the government provides for these loans which are sold as derivatives. Its still debt!
11)Taibbi didn't mention the Bush tax cuts being rolled back. Big deal! Taxation for the top bracket has been reducing for the past 30 years. Carter and Reagan reduced it while Clinton pushed it up by a few percentage points which Bush brought down again. Even after rolling back Bush tax cuts, we won't be at levels where we were when the economy was a lot more stable before the deregulation orgies began.
12)CFPA is a strong agency...not as strong as it should be. McCain would also have been better than Bush. Some regulation is better than no regulation. Some healthcare reform is better than no reform. You and the Democratic Party can set your benchmarks as low as you want. You can't expect others to do the same.
13)You referred to another article from your website which has this line - “The argument between Sherman and the "establishment" -- including House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, a liberal himself -- is indicative of the broader divide among Democrats, between populists like Sherman and pragmatists like Frank and the Obama White House.” - Basically, people who want REAL reform are not pragmatists without a meaningful sense of reality while the Obama administration are in tune with reality by bowing down to pressures from the establishment. Great observation except that Obama “promised” something else which is what Taibbi is pointing at. As for the point – you have proved already that you're fine with “some” reform while Taibbi wants much larger reform which is in tune with the line – CHANGE HAS FINALLY COME TO AMERICA – does that ring a bell?
14)The last two points are specific policy decisions for which neither you nor Taibbi gives any sources or references. Again, opinion based on different scenarios or readings of policy documents. Hardly a rebuttal though!
So I wasted a good hour of my life going through details of the lies that Taibbi wrote in his column and found that the Rubin example was his biggest error. Taibbi is trying to make a connection between Obama's policies and his advisory staff's history in policymaking. He is also comparing President Obama with Candidate Obama with respect to the above. I don't think you, me or any progressive with an ounce of integrity will disagree that Obama has done a 180 on almost all issues which the left holds dear. The worst part of it all, its only the first year!

Sorry about the formatting above. I forgot to indent lines with HTML coding. Next time!

I think that Felix Salmon has already dealt with most of the glaring errors in this heinous turd of an article, but I would like to add a small observation:

Fernholz reminds me of a mediocre suck-up who can't understand why his professor and classmates have more respect for the clever delinquent who snipes from the back-row (Taibbi) than for him.

Taibbi is a talented writer, is smarter than you and is on the whole correct.

Fernholz is left here whining "but he doesn't show his work!" "I play by all the rules of beltway journalism, why am I stuck in the d-leagues while this guy breaks all the rules and people love him"

Why? Because you suck Fernholz, thats why. You're not very smart and not a good writer. Therefore the only way you can get paid for your work is by following the rules and pumping out bland drivel. No amount of nitpicking will ever change that. You've either got it or you don't. Taibbi has it, you don't. Sorry.

Taibbi gets to play by the Jordan rules because he is good. He's not good because he cuts corners - he's allowed to cut corners a bit because everyone can tell that he is good. No one gives a shit about d-league bench-riders like yourself screaming foul.

"You can also ask Elizabeth Warren, who came up with the idea, what she thinks of Frank's proposal. Oh, I did."

You did? You gave us a link- might you condescend to give us the quote, too? Are you suggesting your question to Warren about Frank's proposal was between the lines or otherwise implicit? Or did you just want to mention, apropos of practically nothing, the softball, high school newspaper-like questions you posed to Warren? "Why are people so angry about the government's efforts to save the economy?" Points to Ms. Warren for not laughing in your face (or maybe she did). Hard to imagine Taibibi asking her a question that inane.

Das - well written.

I actually read both articles, and I have to say that this one is much more plausible. However, the comments are quite amazing... With so many experts out there, you'd think most of our problems would already be solved. Instead most of these guys seem to be wasting their time keeping score.

I didn't know that Robert Gibbs wrote for TAP.

Both sides are right. Obama has indeed incorporated some of the elements of the status quo but that does not mean he has abandoned populist/grassroots elements of the movement. His character does not seem to lend itself to shallow power plays and he is smarter than Gietner and Sommers put together. He is not being played by them or the corporate elite...he is playing them, or rather utilizing them as useful tools for real progress. The so called grass roots left has legitimate concerns that are being heard. Be patient my friends, and dispense with the name calling before it divides us. Perhaps none of us are douches I guess is what I'm saying and Obama is certainly not one.

I have to say, I'm pretty disappointed by the reflexive sexism of so much of the left -- is calling someone a "douchebag" and telling them to "grow a pair" really the height of incisive criticism?

I enjoy reading Taibbi too, but it's fair to call him out for errors and distortions. Felix Salmon defends Taibbi against Fernholz, but as one of his defenses, says that Taibbi's work "isn’t meant to be taken nearly as literally as Fernholz is taking it". Maybe not, but the well-that-part-was-obviously-intended-ironically defense gets a bit old...

I'm no fan of Tiabbi, but this post is loony! Geitner has never worked for a bank?!? Do you understand the Federal Reserve Banking system? The guy has worked for the banks all his life!!

Personally, my favorite part of the Tiabbi piece is:

"Obama may not have run to the left of Samuel Gompers or Cesar Chavez, but it's not like you saw him on the campaign trail flanked by bankers from Citigroup and Goldman Sachs."

Left wingers crack me up. Obama was funded by wall street. Obama himself said part of his job was to "make government cool again". EXACTLY! His job is to make mush brained zombies love the corporate war state....and it has worked well so far. He even campaigned on escalating the war and no one listened.

His character does not seem to lend itself to shallow power plays and he is smarter than Gietner and Sommers put together. He is not being played by them or the corporate elite...he is playing them, or rather utilizing them as useful tools for real progress.

The ever-popular he's-playing-brilliant-11th-dimensional-chess argument we've come to know and loathe. No one ever seems to be able to say when this brilliance will make itself apparent though.

It is hard for us closer to the center of the road to make sense of all the road signs because we have rude reckless drivers on both sides of the road swerving and yelling at us.

Liberals forget that there is also a liberal fringe that is not much less "lunatic" than the Tea Baggers.

I think as liberals we expect to fail and see the slightest slowdown or detour as wholesale desertion of liberal principles.

A lot of what this article puts forth are not ideas, but check-able facts. If the person that one articles says is in a position or not? This is not opinion. But that means that we have to actually do something - like research - rather than just set at our computers and scream that the end is near.

It brings me to the over simplistic "Lead, follow or get out of the way." In this case it is "Have an opinion based upon something you can justify and others can discuss, or shut up."

Crying that one person is an apologist is the equivalent of "so is your mother".

We have unprecedented abilities to express our ideas and opinions and the ability to learn form others, and so many just engage in name calling.

I wonder if CEA chair Christine Romer has heard of this top administration economist Christy Roemer ?

When fact checking it is best to spelll corectly (that's why I don't fact check. I couldn't spell to save my life).

I hadn't heard of Tim Fernholz until this controversy erupted. I just read the Fernholz slam of Taibbi, and Taibbi's rebuttal of Fernholz. If this were a boxing match, Fernholz was knocked out in the first 60 seconds -- he throws a really weak punch. I won't take the trouble to read any more of Fernholz's emotional and disorganized ramblings again -- not worth the trouble.

There is a peculiar hysterical subtext to Ferhholz's attack on Taibbi. That use of the attack term "conspiracy theories" -- there is a fragrance there of neoconservative smear rhetoric employed by dubious characters like Daniel Pipes. One can see that Ferhnolz is upset by discussion of the role of Bob Rubin, Goldman Sachs and other leading Wall Street players on the Obama administration. But why? What could be a more important topic in American politics? Does Fernholz identify with that crowd and their interests?

Many worthy comments, but why does everyone give Taibbi a free pass?

He WAS an ardent supporter of Obama, cynically and inaccurately reported on Clinton voters, and the "idiot" public in Ohio due to it's lack of enthusiasm for Obama's then-promised negating of Nafta.
TAIBBI IS A RECKLESS RAG HOUND DISGUISED AS A JOURNALIST.

As a college composition teacher, Mr. Feinholz, I can tell your that your rebuttal is plain terrible. Would have failed my class. Your counter-argument hinges almost on interpretations of terminology in the original, always a strategy of the weak, and most of your rebuttals don't even counter-argue ANYTHING! It seems your have a voice because you happened to be the one writing an opposition piece.

Sorry Mr. Author, your critique of Matt and apology for Obama is ridiculous and not credible. All you people who continually apologize and find excuses for Obama make me puke. The guy is a 100% sellout and Hillary was 100% right, change you can Xerox. Obama = FAIL.

I have a completely different critical view of Matt Taibbi’s pamphlet type Op-Ed

When Matt Taibbi quotes as an example of really big bad pro market economics Peter Orszag totally innocuously saying "Market competition and globalization generate significant economic benefits" it is too clear that he is looking at it from such a faraway land he can never understand what happened.

For instance when he writes of “a crushing economic crisis brought on by a decade of orgiastic deregulation” he either has no idea of what happened or wants to hide the fact of how much bank regulations were to blame for this crisis, since regulate they sure did… even to the extent of telling banks how much capital they must have for each type of risk according to how the risk was measured by some of the credit rating agencies to whom the regulators outsourced this function. And of course these regulations benefitted, with the mother of all pro-cyclical regulations, those who already were up at the top with their AAA ratings (plus the governments) and set up the mother of all regulatory arbitrage business opportunities consisting in taking some truly lousy awarded mortgages and transforming them in AAA rated securities with the help of some few infamous financial alchemists.

It is clearly written by someone out on a vendetta … but what makes it interesting though is how much exactly that very same things are said from the other extreme. Poor Obama he sure is between an extreme hard rock and an extreme hard place in the company of some quite useless so called “experts”... God save the… oh no that is in the UK!

I implore everyone to read Taibbi's response to this article:

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/12/12/on-obamas-sellout-bailout-tarp-rubin-goldman-sachs-robert-bob-tim-geithner-hamilton-project-derivatives-financial-reform-citibank/#more-1170

Thank you.

It is so much fun to read progressives turning on each other over worthless panditic dribble. I can tell you this, in conservative circles tiabbi is a joke and not worthy of being debated. And its not because there aren't good progressive pundits who contribute to a robust political debate on Obama, but tiabbi is not part of that world. He lives in the world of cool, rolling stone. In that world the facts don't matter only ideas. For Tiabbi's audience, any sueudo intellectual garbage he can remotely string together is insightful as long as it has the conspiracy theory feel to it. You know where everyone reading it gets "it". That is why these posts are a waste of time, including mine. Anyway, keep up the good work and i mean the debate on how badly obama is doing, because that is one fact Tiabbi got right.

Newt Neocon -- one assumes that "panditic dribble" = pedantic drivel? One can quickly see why some conservatives would avoid debating Matt Taibbi.

You're an awful writer and either stupid or mendacious. This is a terrible hit piece which adds nothing to the conversation. This is the kind of garbage one would expect if you set out explicitly to defend entrenched, moneyed interests. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Amazingly, I never heard of this Tim Turdholz prior to his attack on The Taibbi - and reading his profoundly lames excuses for being a mindless Obama Apologist, I can understand why.

Geez, one need only know who Diana Farrell is, and her background, to become uber-skeptical of everything Obama!

But, since I'm fully appreciative of Matt Taibbi's outstanding expose on the Obama toxic appointments from Hell, as I've long been familiar with ALL his appointments, Fernholtz comes off as a complete turd!

Didn't I already mention that?

Wow. Someone corrects a few mistakes that Taibbi makes and suddenly they're a douche with an agenda? With skills of persuasion like that, it's a wonder some of these people are leaving anonymous comments instead of writing for Rolling Stone!
The fact is, Taibbi is right a lot of the time, but he is an opinion writer, not a journalist and he gets his facts wrong, either accidentally or purposefully to fit his narrative. I am a fan of his and even I recognize that.

Another point: those who have mentioned Joseph Kennedy's SEC
appointment followed by several even more outstanding appointments to head up Roosevelt's SEC (William O Douglas did an incredible job!) might do well to review their econ history.

Kennedy attempted to talk with JP Morgan about the runaway speculation taking place in the stock market, but Morgan, as usual with Morgan and the Goldman Sachs crew, couldn't be bothered as they were profiting the most from it.

Kennedy, on the other hand, realized it would crash the market big time.

And, Joe gave us the last president who would bring the insurance industry to bear on price-fixing (the insurance industry execs signed a Consent Decree whereby the promised to halt their price-fixing ways) in October of 1963, thanks to John and Bobbie Kennedy!

And I fully agree that this Fernholz is a complete douchebag and the citizenry is royally fed up with bought-and-paid for stenographers (formally called "journalists").

Newt Neocon:

I also liked "any sueudo intellectual garbage".

I think being unfamiliar with the words you use is a good way to show that you don't live in the world of the "cool", or, you know, the "literate", either.

By the way, Taibbi has a point by point rebuttal of this blog post up, and it's everything you could hope for after reading this nonsense. Fernholz's post had so many errors and non sequiturs, I could have written the rebuttal myself just from having read Taibbi's original piece.

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/12/12/on-obamas-sellout-bailout-tarp-rubin-goldman-sachs-robert-bob-tim-geithner-hamilton-project-derivatives-financial-reform-citibank/#

Mannabass:

Really? You think that:

"a nightmare of a story ... a factual mess, a conspiracy theorist's dream..."

...are "correcting some mistakes"?

Interesting that you simply swallow whole the idea of the "errors" that this writer found and assume that Taibbi made them, and then magnanimously allow for them because he's an "opinion writer".

I thought this piece was incredibly arrogant, arch, and simply way over the top. I could also find several factual errors in this post just by comparing it to what Taibbi actually wrote. Check my link above by the way to see Taibbi's response.

Mainly my point though is that this goes much farther than "correcting some mistakes", and that's what people are responding to.

Mannabass -- Taibbi's stories on Wall Street have been masterpieces of investigative journalism. It is a measure of the pitiful state of the current journalistic establishment that investigative research of this quality isn't being conducted by the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. Apparently they are afraid of offending their corrupt cronies. Publications like Rolling Stone have been left to do some of the heavy lifting. And as for the standards of much of the "progressive" media -- Fernholz's effort speaks for itself. He's in the business of obfuscating apologetics for powerful political players like Goldman Sachs.

In your case, "liberal intelligence" is certainly an oxymoron (altho I am sure this has been pointed out before).

Your stupid comments and your even more pedestrian prose rate this an F; why don't you just admit the pre-eminence of your betters?

In many of the points Fernholz makes, he actually concedes that Taibbi is at least partially correct. One of the most egregious examples is this:

* Michael Froman. His connection to Obama is through their time together on the Harvard Law Review, not through Rubin. He did indeed once work for Rubin, and was a member of Obama's transition advisory board; he was not on the transition staff. His portfolio is international economic policy, he does not participate in domestic financial policymaking except in that strategic role; of late his main focus has been managing economic negotiations with China.

How does this contradict what Taibbi wrote?

Leading the search for the president's new economic team was his close friend and Harvard Law classmate Michael Froman, a high-ranking executive at Citigroup. During the campaign, Froman had emerged as one of Obama's biggest fundraisers, bundling $200,000 in contributions and introducing the candidate to a host of heavy hitters — chief among them his mentor Bob Rubin, the former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs who served as Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton. Froman had served as chief of staff to Rubin at Treasury, and had followed his boss when Rubin left the Clinton administration to serve as a senior counselor to Citigroup (a massive new financial conglomerate created by deregulatory moves pushed through by Rubin himself).

Where exactly are the “lies and innuendo” that Fernholz whines Taibbi is purveying?

Look again at this sentence by Fernholz:
His portfolio is international economic policy, he does not participate in domestic financial policymaking except in that strategic role;

That can be rewritten as: “Froman does not does not participate in domestic financial policymaking -- except that he sometimes does when dealing with international economic policy,” Furthermore, we does Fernholz mean to argue that because Froman is mostly concerned with international economic policy, we need have no fear that Froman is unduly influenced by his former connections to Bob Rubin and Citigroup, which supposedly only impact domestic economic policy. And even leaving aside that point, then I sure would like to ask Mr. Froman what input he had, if any, in the decision to give AIG the government backing that enabled it to pay the full amount owed to foreign holders of AIG’s credit default swaps, and what ties those foreign holders have to Citigroup.

No, in my reading of it, Fernholz is splitting hairs in a classic attempt to weaken and discredit an argument he disagrees with, without actually dealing with the substance of the argument.

Finally, let’s look at fernholz’s ending:
The problems Taibbi tries to describe aren't some kind of ridiculous cabal. They come from group-think and structural influences and as a result of a complex interplay of interests and institutions; the policies they produce aren't either good or evil, they're in need of analysis to determine which help regular people, which hurt them and how to change the latter into the former.

That’s pretty much the point Taibbi is making. And the President should be condemned all the more for it, because the problems of group-think and structural influences have been known, studied, examined, diagnosed, and described by numerous generations of sociologists and political scientists. So, there is no excuse for any American President to fall into the traps of group-think and structural influences.

That’s pretty much the point Taibbi is making. And the President should be condemned all the more for it, because the problems of group-think and structural influences have been known, studied, examined, diagnosed, and described by numerous generations of sociologists and political scientists. So, there is no excuse for any American President to fall into the traps of group-think and structural influences.

But here's what really pisses me off: statements like "the policies they produce aren't either good or evil." The hell they don't. When 44,000 people die each year because of the lack of health care, that's evil. When financiers can squeeze more profit out of a chain of nursing homes by cutting back on staff and services, that's evil, especially when elderly and disabled people die as a result, even if indirectly. When much of the economy is shattered and shuttered, forcing millions of people to live in circumstances that stretch them to the breaking point, that's evil. When millions of Americans are losing their primary residences due to foreclosures, at the same time that judges are allowed to write down the amount owed on vacation residences, boats, and luxury cars, but NOT primary residences, that's evil. So fuck Fernholz and anyone who agrees with him: you're all simpering, sniveling moral cowards who are unwilling to call evil what it plainly is. Especially if you just so happen to have a vested interest in the continuation of the "group-think and structural influences" that produce and perpetuate such evil. Each one of you should be forced to spend two or three days in solitary confinement, with nothing to do but read a collection of diaries like this one: Uninsured Amputee pleads: "I need help to get a leg! I don't have insurance"

The real outrage is that Taibbi’s critics are outraged by his calling the President a “sell-out” rather than being properly outraged at the way economic and financial policies thus far in this administration clearly favor the rich and powerful, rather than we the people.

Seriously, you need to find someone other than Matt Taibbi to go after. I read his response to your piece on his trueslant blog and he pretty much ripped you. I think that if Taibbi had become a trial lawyer rather than a journalist he would never lose a case. He has a way of explaining things without trying to cloud the details with liberal or conservative spin that we seem to get from everyone else in America. I have known for years that since Clinton came to office that the Dems have been taken over by a bunch of wall street cronies. The only thing that we can do is let them deregulate everything, completely ruin the country and then we can start over. The greedy capitalist assholes that ruined the country can watch us become great again from their jail cells.

Tim, you're full of shit. Taibbi knows his stuff better than you ever will. That's a fact. Deal with it.

Don't worry Tim, all these naysayers will be busy sucking your cock and telling you how magnificent your dick is the instant you say something they agree with.

Such is leftist talking points memo politics these days, but you're well aware of that at the prospect, right?

Not me anon. I am too busy having Timmie polish my knob. As long as I keep saying how great Obama and TNR are he keeps on working it.

Ms. Priss,

"Take's one to catch one."

I guess that was FDR's way of justifying an alliance with the Soviet Union as well. It was also really useful for when he put Japanese Americans in internment camps... really helped us catch those kamikaze pilots. A true man of the people he was.

I hope Fernholz got paid well for his article by his handlers coz he just shot down his career six notches with the effort.

Fernholz, you're a cunt.

You hit Taibbi hard with the legitimately embarrassing minor factual error (which is almost bound to happen in a long, rushed, complicated piece like this), but then you try to create the impression that Taibbi is an irresponsible hack by piling on to that first blow with a seemingly endless string of "errors" which, on closer examination, are pure horse manure on your part.

With the exception of the Rubin's son error, you simply disagree with his interpretations of indisputable facts and then call him a liar or an incompetent - again and again and again.

Your readesr should check out Taibbi's response and see who's the real hack:
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/12/12/on-obamas-sellout-bailout-tarp-rubin-goldman-sachs-robert-bob-tim-geithner-hamilton-project-derivatives-financial-reform-citibank/#more-1170

"It's the sweetheart deal of the century, putting generations of working-stiff taxpayers on the hook to pay off Bob Rubin's fuck-up-rich tenure at Citi." Actually, the U.S. structural deficit and resultant national debt is mainly a hangover from the Bush Administration...

Sorry but this conflation of the Citibank bailout terms with the deficit is just inexcusable reporting. Taibbi was writing about the help Citi received at taxpayer expense. Surely this error on your part is worse than anything Taibbi can be charged with having done.

This discussion reminds me of so many wasted moments over the years. According to the purists of their day, Humphrey and Nixon were "identical". Gore vs. Bush? "Identical".

So for the left, Rehnquist and Roberts and Alito and so many others are the same as Douglas and Lawrence Tribe.

But even beyond that, left writers assume a great desire by Americans for major reforms, and therefore, revolutions are easy.

For Taibbi and his fellow thinkers, it is all so easy. Americans and the American Economy are hungry for change and change is simple.

Note how easy it is for the purists defending Taibbi and attacking Obama.

And meanwhile, back in the real Congress, Ben Nelson will kill health care reform if it does not outlaw abortion.

And there has been no leftist model for a successful economy that would make it out of Bernie Sanders Breezeway.

President Obama, like any Democratic president, is not a revolutionary. Even if a Democrat were, there is no model to follow.

It is not surprising to anyone who has seen the self-destruction of America's progressives that Taibbi's defenders praise him for getting his facts wrong in an amusing way.

The left may well deserve William Rehnquist and John Roberts because the left, like Senator Nelson, always draws moral lines.

This discussion reminds me of so many wasted moments over the years. According to the purists of their day, Humphrey and Nixon were "identical". Gore vs. Bush? "Identical".

So for the left, Rehnquist and Roberts and Alito and so many others are the same as Douglas and Lawrence Tribe.

But even beyond that, left writers assume a great desire by Americans for major reforms, and therefore, revolutions are easy.

For Taibbi and his fellow thinkers, it is all so easy. Americans and the American Economy are hungry for change and change is simple.

Note how easy it is for the purists defending Taibbi and attacking Obama. Any mistake about factual matters is Taibbi's opinion and interpretation. The villain is Obama. Didn't he pal around with William Ayers? Didn't he promise an end to capitalism?

And meanwhile, back in the real Congress, Ben Nelson will kill health care reform if it does not outlaw abortion.

And there has been no leftist model for a successful economy that would make it out of Bernie Sanders Breezeway.

President Obama, like any Democratic president, is not a revolutionary. Even if a Democrat were, there is no model to follow.

It is not surprising to anyone who has seen the self-destruction of America's progressives that Taibbi's defenders praise him for getting his facts wrong in an amusing way.

The left may well deserve William Rehnquist and John Roberts because the left, like Senator Nelson, always draws moral lines.

If only Prospect could write a devastating critique of the financial nepotism in the Obama administration. I'm not sure if you're aware of the the rot. Let alone write the ballsiest and most vivid American journalism articles about it.

Civility is the second last refuge of the scoundrel. The scoundrel can himself open the door to that refuge - he needs no stooge to do it for him.

bottom line:

Taibbi struck a nerve. lots of sputtering and pouting about bits and pieces, but if he wasn't on to something there wouldn't be such a hue and cry about what he wrote, and this about something written in Rolling Stone? if the boys on Wall Street and D.C. are paying attention to something that appeared in RS you can bet your sweet ass he's on to something.

Taibbi is an irresponsible hack. The people attacking Fernholtz merely by waving their hands just embarrass themselves.

The notion that Tim only catches Taibbi in "a single minor factual error" to willful illiteracy among some so-called progressives. I think it's only necessary to pick out 2 examples over and above the Rubin mistake:

1) How can anyone think that Taibbi's claim that Goolsbee was "marginalized" is at the very least GROSSLY MISLEADING when the truth is that Goolsby actually SITS ON TWO OF MOST INFLUENTIAL ECONOMIC POLICY ADVISORY BODIES IN THE EXECUTIVE?!?! Taibbi defenders, given that your boy is trying to craft an argument almost entirely out of innuendo, how is that not a "factual error" or just a "minor point"?

2) In a wonderful example of fallacious argumentation, he arrives at the conclusion that all of Obama's economic staff is somehow connected to Bob Rubin by making one of those connections "the Clinton White House". Can anyone who isn't a tea partier actually take this seriously? So Taibbi is saying that if you had experience in the economic last Dem administration, then you're compromised for the purposes of doing econ policy. I'm sorry, that is just idiotic. It's on nearly the same level as arguing that because have an account at Citibank, I am a tool of Bob Rubin and his deregulatory philosophy.

Taibbi is a cancer to progressive politics. He's good at selling issues of Rolling Stone, because he has a talent for being incindiary reducing issues not just to simple and stupid binaries, but also by making them a matter of personality--which is exactly what we DON'T need in trying to reform the financial system, where the problems have much less to do with individual misconduct, and much more to do with the overall framework and how the system has been allowed to operate.

(Also, I note that no one has taken note of Tim's perceptive point that one of the problems of Taibbi's way overhyped attack on Goldman Sachs is that it made way too big of a deal of one entity--when the problem is actually cultural and systemic.)

The bottom line is without Taibbi's vampire squid article the media would still be asleep at the wheel.

My understanding of economics is "above average", which means I don't know a heck of a lot. The

original article and this counter-article are heavy lifting, but my definite impression of the points
presented in this counter-article were of a lot of arm waving.

Because of the heavy lifting I chose to test my impression by focusing on one bullet. I selected the

last in the list:

Taibbi quote:
"Even more outrageous, it specifically prohibited Congress from rejecting tax giveaways to Wall

Street, as it did last year, by removing all congressional oversight of future bailouts."

Counter point:
The legislation actually only allows federal regulators to use funds taxed from banks to assist them

in a crisis; if they want to use taxpayer money, Congress can say no.

Here is what I learned. My impression was verified. And it wasn't just this counter-article that used

smoke and mirrors, the legislation itself was the work of magicians.

The Taibbi quote is from how the legislation stood BEFORE IT WAS AMENDED. The counter-point ignores

Taibbi's discussion of the amendments to fake a "gotcha".

BUT MORE SIGNIFICANT, the counter-point LIES. "allows federal regulators to use funds taxED from

banks". Hey! 'To intentionally mislead is to lie'. TaxED, TAXED! NO past tense!

The tax from the banks is NOT a done deal. We don't tax the banks and then use this tax as a super-

fund for future bailouts. Nor is there necessarily a tax collected in the future. The legislation says

the FDIC would dish out the money to the banks and then subject the banks to a tax THAT DOES NOT

NECESSARILY EVER GET PAID BACK.

It is still "taxpayer money", only the FDIC has set up a tax on the banks that may never get paid!

Jeesh! to this bullet:
Counter point:
The legislation actually only allows federal regulators to use funds taxed from banks to assist them

in a crisis; if they want to use taxpayer money, Congress can say no.

So this is what happens when you attack Obama for endorsing bush policies. A slimy, disingenuous attack.

(excuse me for reposting, but the paragraph alignment was...fingers crossed)

My understanding of economics is "above average", which means I don't know a heck of a lot. The original article and this counter-article are heavy lifting, but my definite impression of the points presented in this counter-article were of a lot of arm waving.

Because of the heavy lifting I chose to test my impression by focusing on one bullet. I selected the last in the list:

Taibbi quote:
"Even more outrageous, it specifically prohibited Congress from rejecting tax giveaways to Wall Street, as it did last year, by removing all congressional oversight of future bailouts."

Counter point:
"The legislation actually only allows federal regulators to use funds taxed from banks to assist them in a crisis; if they want to use taxpayer money, Congress can say no."

Here is what I learned. My impression was verified. And it wasn't just this counter-article that used smoke and mirrors, the legislation itself was the work of magicians.

The Taibbi quote is from how the legislation stood BEFORE IT WAS AMENDED. The counter-point ignores Taibbi's discussion of the amendments to fake a "gotcha".

BUT MORE SIGNIFICANT, the counter-point LIES. "allows federal regulators to use funds taxED from banks". Hey! 'To intentionally mislead is to lie'. TaxED, TAXED! NO past tense!

The tax from the banks is NOT a done deal. We don't tax the banks and then use this tax as a super-fund for future bailouts. Nor is there necessarily a tax collected in the future. The legislation says the FDIC would dish out the money to the banks and then subject the banks to a tax THAT DOES NOT NECESSARILY EVER GET PAID BACK.

It is still "taxpayer money", only the FDIC has set up a tax on the banks that may never get paid!

Jeesh! to this bullet:
Counter point:
The legislation actually only allows federal regulators to use funds taxed from banks to assist them in a crisis; if they want to use taxpayer money, Congress can say no.

Obama is a different face of the same 'big money beast' of empire.....Peak Oil will change everything.

Enjoy your illusion of change.

This Fernholz snark is an example of why I no longer subscribe to The American Prospect. His "fact" checking and personal attack on Taibbi is both trivial and opinion on his part. Maybe he's bucking for a job at Newsweek, replacing Joe Klein.

The bald fact is that Obama was prepared to - and did - mortgage America to save Wall Street rather than making Wall Street bite the bullet to help save America.

Why did it happen? Was it, as Taibbi suggests, because he wa too chummy with the Rubintes, or was it, as you suggest, because he just happened to be surrounded by people who think like Rubinites?

Hmmm....

Is Tim a CIA shill?

Conspiracy is a word for a reason. It means when two or more people plan to break the law. When money and power are involved, it happens more often than not. Anybody who brings up that word to try to change its original meaning by mentioning it derisively makes me think criminal. Maybe, we should change the word to one that does not force a funny face when you say the word? Sad,

This blog post may well set a record for the intensity of anger generated against the blogger. I wonder if Tim Fernholz is going to reflect carefully about his experience, and perhaps write a post which explains, from his standpoint, what happened. This is what I think happened: Fernholz managed to create the impression that he is aligned with the corrupt Wall Street manipulators who have been responsible for the worst American financial meltdown since the Great Depression. Many of his readers have concluded that he is a sophistical and intellectually dishonest apologist for those players, that he identifies with them, their culture and their interests. What say you, Tim?

Well Timmy you really stepped on your dick this time. It looks like better than 9 out of 10 side with Matt.

"This blog post may well set a record for the intensity of anger generated against the blogger. I wonder if Tim Fernholz is going to reflect carefully about his experience, and perhaps write a post which explains, from his standpoint, what happened."

Why does the !@#$@% does Tim need to reflect carefully about what happened?? This is an entirely predictable result of taking on a reasonably competent demogogue. Notice that NO ONE actually deals substantively with any of Tim's critiques, or the additional support provider by Taibbi skeptical commentators--they just all wonder why Tim is suddenly in league with the Wall St. fat cats and call him a "dick".

If anything, Tim and anyone who gives a damn about good policymaking and honest discourse need to ignore the mouthbreathers who come here and leave comments that amount to nothing more than "u r a d0uche, Tim", and keep pounding away at Taibbi.

As a non-American, I have to say that I'm starting to agree with the guy above who drew the connection to idiot lefties who argued that Bush and Gore were "identical". Taibbi is cut from the same cloth as those hothead morons that had to spend the next 8 years spewing about how Gore would have lost anyway, and he's coddled by the same enabler centrist friends in media who propped up Nader because he brought a "fresh perspective" unlike boring, earnest, thoughtful Gore. If the U.S. left can't figure out why Taibbi's bullsh*t hurts them, then maybe y'all actually deserved to be continuously thrashed by the Repubs and ruled by guys like Bush--too bad the rest of the world can't afford your arrogant stupidity.

"Well Timmy you really stepped on your dick this time. It looks like better than 9 out of 10 side with Matt."

Yeah, except the 9 out of 10 are idiots who can't think for themselves and are in love with Taibbi's manly display of his journalistic chest hair. If anyone has stepped on its dick, it's American "progressives".

I'm no heavyweight on economics, probably not even a lightweight but I know a shellgame and a scam when I see one. Maybe Obama didn't have a lot of choice. Changing the ship captain and crew while still at sea has big risks even if they are the same idiots who wrecked the ship to begin with. That said I liked what Taibbi wrote, it struck a cord and put into words lots of what I have been feeling about Obama. That I like him voted for him and think that he is far to willing to capitulate to the powers that be, that he is turning his back on the very ideals that got people involved in the election who normally vote but don't get involved (myself) I saw nothing in this rubutal that alters that. I don't think Obama is corrupt. I think it is hard to change a corrupt system playing by systems rules. Maybe that is overly simplistic, but it is my opinion that making a simple con game complex doesn't change what it is.

P.S.: "Fernholz reminds me of a mediocre suck-up who can't understand why his professor and classmates have more respect for the clever delinquent who snipes from the back-row (Taibbi) than for him."

Substitute "Gore" and "Nader" for "Fernholz" and "Taibbi", and you have the entire U.S. media narrative of the 2000 election in one very tidy sentence.

Great job, kiddies. See you at the Naomi Klein book tour bemoaning the cabal that behind the next 2-term Repub administration.

Did I just read that you just "skimmed" the article before writing this post?

Shame on you. You may be correct with what you say, but one thing is for sure, this post an intellectual fraud.

EricT: the two main differences between you and Matt Taibbi: 1. You really can't pull off an aggressively verbal style with any flair or originality. You shouldn't even try -- very few writers have the talent to get away with it. 2. Your comments so far on the role of Wall Street in the Obama administration have been entirely fact-free -- Taibi's posts have been loaded up with solid investigative research into the continuing grubby Wall Street machinations that Obama has enabled.

Regarding Taibbi vs. Fernholz: Taibbi keeps it real. Fernholz keeps it unreal. Most us know the difference between real and unreal, between direct truth telling and fuzzy-headed truth obfuscation.

This is still the main question: Fernholz's buttons were pushed by Taibbi's criticism of Goldman Sachs, Bob Rubin and the rest of that crew, and he responded emotionally and incoherently, thowing around smears of conspiracy theorizing. Why?

EricT: If Republicans do regain control of the White House and Congress, it will be because Barack Obama and the Democratic Party have destroyed any remaining belief among the electorate that there is any significant difference between the two parties. Have you failed to notice that Obama's most enthusiastic supporters of late are neoconservatives and Christian fundamentalists like William Kristol and Sarah Palin? Under the influence of neoliberals (neoconservatives) in the Democratic Party, he has completely betrayed his base, the people who put him into the White House. They are justifiably angry. You and Fernholz are magnifying Obama's problems, not helping him.

Well, I haven't read Taibbi's piece yet, but after your, um, critique, I guess I'd better. What's the opposite of "damning with faint praise"? Recommending by weak criticism??

Taibbi's a conspiracy theorist and a hack. He admitted himself that he was clueless on the financial specifics in his Goldman runs everything conspiracy article a few months ago. Taibbi is always an entertaining read, but his articles always allege some latest conspiracy, based on trivial or dubious connections. Far more weighty critiques can be found via Krugman and Reich than in Taibbi's epic nonsense.

Thanks for posting this. I am tired of shrill denunciations of proposed legislation that people haven't read. This pitchfork brigade nonsense is tiresome. Financial sector reform is critical. Conservative interest groups are going to do everything they can to prevent the administration from arming the SEC with the tools they need to police derivatives and the securities industry at large, and from creating an effective bank regulator instead of the confused alphabet soup that we currently have in place. Liberals should be on board with the reforms and resisting efforts to undermine them. Instead, they're undermining their own president. At least read the proposals and try to figure out what they mean. Not everyone who has ever worked for an investment bank is an enemy of the republic.

Tim Fernholz rebuttal of Taibbi has been totally destroyed by Felix Salmon at Reutors pointing out the following among other things.

1. Ferholz claims the CFPA has been "somewhat marginalized" In reality the CFPA doesn't even exist anymore.

2. Fernholz Claims he asked Elizabeth Warren about the 8,000 banks that got an exemption. Fernaolz didn't ask Elizabeth Warren that question at all.

3. Most of the things Fernholz implies that Taibbi said he didn't actually say and you should be careful and fact check Fernholz for misleading allegations.

It seems Fernholz is pretty far off base in his blind defense of Obama. Read it yourself because I wouldn't want you to believe me or Fernholz.

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/12/11/fernholz-vs-taibbi/

I'll bet Turdholz has generated more exposure with this faux crat drivel than ever before. By going after an actual journalist (a species he is clearly unfamiliar with) he is following Neocon Marketing 101. Way to go, Tiny Tim!

Scrooge has left the building....

It's been too many posts since Fernholz was called a factory wrapped douche.

Fernholz had the opportunity to pick the arguments and he loses on all accounts except the Jamie Rubin count.

Even if Fernholz had won on all counts, it still would not have changed the core argument that Taibbi was making: that Obama's team is captured.

I know Taibbi responded to this article, but really he won this tiff hands down before Fernholz was finished writing.

The problem with accusing people of conspiracy theories is that there are a lot of conspiracies around and it's become a tired and, frankly, conspiracy theory red herring itself (accusing people of conspiracy theories is often a conspiracy theory itself). Facts are sufficient. When you say "Froman had little to do with [hiring Geithner] other than aiding in vetting," the term "vetting" could mean so many things. Why don't you define it? Is it because you don't really know what role he played? This kind of criticism applies to much of your criticism. It doesn't mean Taibbi's right, just that you can't claim to be "more right" by relying equally on half-baked assumptions about the details of events. The dirty little secrets (the so-called "conspiracy") always rest in the unknown details about which assumptions are formed. Why should your assumptions (or unreferenced claims) be any more reliable than anyone else's?

"Well, I haven't read Taibbi's piece yet, but after your, um, critique, I guess I'd better. What's the opposite of "damning with faint praise"? Recommending by weak criticism??

Posted by: Amit Joshi"

lol.. well said, well said

EricT said, " Notice that NO ONE actually deals substantively with any of Tim's critiques, "

Hey! You simply had to scroll up a bit to my post at:

Posted by: jag pop | December 13, 2009 8:22 AM

ps. I VOTED FOR NADER AND AM VINDICATED ***AGAIN***

Taibbi is right about Jamie Rubin. What's Fernholz talking about?

Bob Rubin's son is also known as Jamie. But here's the funny thing. Guess who wrote this about him:

" His son, Jamie Rubin, is a major Wall Street fund-raiser for Barack Obama "

Answer: Mr Robert Kuttner himself, editor of the American Prospect. (You can google it easily.) Perhaps Tim Fernholz should read the American Prospect more often.

Fernholz writes:

>>The piece is a factual mess.

Yet Fernholz has yet to uncover a single factual error.

I'll help him. Taibbi writes about the Brookings Institute. There is no such thing. It's the Brookings Institution.

Gotcha Taibbi! (Maybe the American Prospect can hire me as an "expert" blogger now.)

You use the "conspiracy theory" label as if Taibbi's assertions were on par with believing Obama is in the Illuminati or that he planned the 9/11 attacks alongside Cheney.

What he is talking about instead is the belief that most of our presidents, this one included, have succumbed to the temptations of the power, the greed and the personalities found in Washington, causing them to neglect the changes they promised to make.

There's a big difference between that and the 9/11 Truth movement or the NWO: It's happening right in front of us, and has been as long as anyone can remember. The best friends that the Demopulicans have are guys like you who will label anyone who is disappointed with their sellouts a kook.

"The ever-popular he's-playing-brilliant-11th-dimensional-chess argument we've come to know and loathe. No one ever seems to be able to say when this brilliance will make itself apparent though."

By the sheer fact that by any measure the nation hasn't fallen into a deep depression, I would say.

Are you trying to convince us that the totality what Rubin--and his cohort, including Clinton--did was something other than collusion to defraud the government of the United States?

Perhaps some non-specialists like Clinton can claim the "ignorance" line that Rubin always promotes. But that's about it.

And where is Clinton's Greenspan-like mea culpa? Democrats and Democratic shills (a-hem) are as responsible for the financial crime wave as any Republican or any financial sector employee you can name.

At the end of the day, Taibbi is more right, and you are more corrupt. And, I don't we're remotely done putting together what you erroneously call a "conspiracy theory" as if that made corruption--including your own--A-okay.

We're living in a failed state, chickie. Something Taibbi knows something about.

"Since he's been in the US he has never seen a president treated the way President Obama is treated. President Obama intelligence is so far ahead of most Americans that they cannot comprehend his thinking".

Oh, please. I once worked for an editor who flattered me similarly. She also told me not to get angry about it.

Alrighty then. Taibbi worked as a journalist in a failed state. Tim Fernholz is a still wet behind the ears BA intern who needs to at least go to graduate school because he can't get any life experience sitting here making excuses for Obama, who is similarly experience and knowledge challenged (and probably considerably more coddled)--only older, thus more pathetic.

I'm sure Taibbi won't get pissed at Fernholz. I no longer take this advice, and I don't apply it to the President of the US, however dumb and inexperienced.

Two words: PRIMARY CHALLENGE.

Is impeachment possible?

"By the way, TF is right about Goolsbee -- he has not been marginalized. And Taibbi was wrong that AG is some kind of liberal; he's actually pretty centrist."

I agree. But, Bam's subsequent appointments have certainly made Ghoulsbee LOOK like "a liberal."

This kind kind of apologetics is EXACTLY what keeps moving the country to the right, righter, far right, Tim.

Is that your objective? I thought we went for Obama over McCain (and over HRC, knowing Edwards would never make it through the Democratic identity politics gauntlet) because we want to STOP the rightward locomotive?

Bam has gone warp speed to the fascist right by agreeing to legitimize them. (The fascists are not packing guns in the rural hollows, Tim. They're the people you're defending).

That's Taibbi's point. You're going to have to get used to the idea that a lot of what you thought you knew about the world is basically wrong.

"#1 is Taibbi's repeated ludicrous assertion that the bailout "could" cost $23.7 trillion, an insane and stupid misrepresentation that anyone with a passing familiarity with numbers will recognize is absurd."

I'm under the impression that $23T is about what the Fed has made available to the trading arms of the big banks to pour into the market--producing obscenely large bonuses for the same fraudsters.

Nice welfare gig if you can get it. That's your so-called "recovery." Shouldn't the Prospect give a passing nod to Obama's homeless and starving? Will it work if we stick an identity politics bumper sticker on it?

Because we can, you know.

Geezus. I can't believe I broke my vow to never ever click on an "American Prospect" link again.

Hypocrites.

I didn't think *that* highly of Taibbi's work, he is great for snark, a likeable populist, but nonetheless not a heavy weight although he nailed most of his stories. Economists like Stiglitz, Simon Johnson, the GAO's David Walker, even Peter Schiff wrote in far greater depth but their damning conclusions vindicate Taibbi in every way.

Some of these "critiques" here of Taibbi's are downright silly, eg. whether Taibbi's conclusion of "Wall St-Washington cronyism" under Obama is fair, or is it simply a co-incidence that most of Obama's appointees are not even six degrees from Citigroup/GoldmanSachs/JPMorgan.....Come on!!! We're not that stupid, are we?? If we are so naive then we truly deserved being brought to the cleaners by Wall St.

"Democrats don't have to worry about a guy like me voting for the GOP anytime soon. I imagine that's the same for most of us."

Speak for yourself. Bam won courtesy of working class white independents in the swing states--who crossed over when the market tanked last fall because they expected the party of FDR to do something about it.

Today, they know three things: Goldman Sachs are the new welfare kings and Bam is doing nothing about it except throw another celebrity salsa bash at the WH, they or their fellows are out of work, and the federal government is about to force them to bail out the healthcare financing industry--which will be the next "subprime" mass debt default because they can't pay for it thanks to declining living standards as a product of outsourcing and "NAFTA" (which belongs to Clinton).

Nice.

No, I can't think of any reason a person wouldn't love themselves some more Bam and his Clintonite Goldman Sachs thugs.

"Bush actively PROTECTED FINANCIAL CRIMINALS. The Madoff arrest provided cover while Bush did one of the most STUNNING CRIMES IN EARTH'S HISTORY."

I think Taibbi's point is that it's NOT so much "Bush's" crime as it is "Rubin's" crime. (Bush's crime is the illegal pre-emptive war, along with Cheney and the neo-conservative idealogues). Bush may have ignored Wall Street, but Rubin (and Gramm, etc) perpetrated it (under Clinton, who they paid off--as they will pay off Bam (who wekk knows this)).

It's important to make this point over and over again given the lie of partisan distinctions that Ferholz and his ilk in both parties pimp on a daily basis, irregardless of what the truth might be.

We need to clean house. All of them.

"does Fernholz mean to argue that because Froman is mostly concerned with international economic policy, we need have no fear that Froman is unduly influenced by his former connections to Bob Rubin and Citigroup, which supposedly only impact domestic economic policy"

No, that can't be it. Not only is the Rubin cohort an enemy of the state in the US, they are international criminals as well.

Kisses, Iceland.

"The problems Taibbi tries to describe aren't some kind of ridiculous cabal. They come from group-think and structural influences and as a result of a complex interplay of interests and institutions; the policies they produce aren't either good or evil, they're in need of analysis to determine which help regular people, which hurt them and how to change the latter into the former"

See, this makes me dismiss this analysis -- it's so empty of substance, that it reflects a profound intellectual failure.

Policies are made by people -- particularly, groups of people. That leads to what you call "groupthing".

What is this "groupthink"? It is the natural tendency of social groups to act in their own interest -- the interest of their members and allies.

What does this mean? That groupthink is another word for "cabal". It's a nice word that allows one to use big words about structural analysis, etc. Which is true enough -- as long as you don't use it to cover up the fact that a social club is producing policy that is in their interest and their buddies.

Which is what you do -- use dirty words "cabal", "conspiracy" and replace them with clean words "group-think", "structural analysis" -- WHICH MEAN THE SAME DAMN THING, YOU MORON.

But you choose those words so we can pretend that the people involved are somehow divorced from the activities. That is so perniciously dishonest. We can argue all day about whether the folks involved know what they do -- what their "intentions" are -- whether you know what you do -- whether this is purely structural, or some of these folks actually have two neurons and are capable of recognizing their interests ---

But why should anyone care about what goes on in their pointy heads? Or yours?

Please, if you have any self-respect, never oppose "groupthink" to "cabal" or "structure" to "conspiracy".

"Far more weighty critiques can be found via Krugman and Reich than in Taibbi's epic nonsense."

Krugman and Reich are long time portfolio watchers. Their intellectual stock sank faster than Bam himself.

Meanwhile, the only person associated with TAP with any shred of intellectual integrity left is that long time anti-Rubin conspiracy theorist, Robert Kuttner.

Maybe Fernholz needs the boot. OTOH, if you booted all the dingbats, sell outs, and dopes at TAP, you'd have an empty building.

Why is it important to not launder activities with nice business-school words?

Because you can't analyze structures and change them if you don't recognize the people you're fighting against -- the ones who will fight tooth and nails to keep the structure in place.

Because you have to simultaneously change structure and the component individuals. Otherwise, you are a hopeless whiny liberal who talks big, but in the end is completely inefficacious.

If you just focus on individuals, the social structure will replace them (and that's the error of using "cabal") -- but if you focus on the structure and pretentiously dismiss the individuals, the individuals will just adjust the social structure around you (and that's the error of using "groupthink").

Anti-conspiracists are even more stupid than conspiracists.

Wow, talk about digging hard. TF tries hard to discredit Taibbi and all he can come up with is one misattribution (Jamie Rubin) and several dubious interpretations, most of which reaffirm Taibbi's central point. But predictably the Obama hard-liners insist these invalidate the whole article and Obama's choices are still as spotless as the driven snow. And the outlandish claims you have to make: Obama saved the financial system from meltdown! Obama got us out of a depression. We have no idea what would have happened to the financial system if the TARP act hadn't happened (the fcat they only spent half of the allocated money indicates the problem was not as severe as touted) and if the depression is over, tell t hat to the 10.0% of uemployed people and the millions who are having their homes foreclosed on.

Get real, folks - I worked for Obama and voted for him but I was never under the impression he was a radical on financial matters (or anything else). I am surprised and saddened by the extent to which he has abandoned his campaign promises to appease his Wall Street overlords, but it just means we have to hold his feet to the fire even more, not to shout down honest criticism.

Most interesting here is comment by jag pop. He's right. Fermholz' essay rings with crafted almost-but-not-quite-true bullshit. (Taibbi on the other hand seems to do an unusually solid job of fact-checking.) The most obvious difference in journalism as practiced by the critic and his target: Taibbi expects to be lied to, and verifies. Fermholz writes like the ultimate -- excuse the pun -- "prospect." I'd bet he's looking for a job, either in the administration, or somewhere on wall street, where he can no doubt change the world from within while being well-paid for it. Useful idiot.

Maybe tapped needs an 'advisory board.'

rerun: Actually, this page should feature prominently on Fernholz's resume if he ever seeks a career at Goldman Sachs or on Wall Street. He took a bit hit for the team. Loyalty that valiant deserves to be rewarded. He's a stand-up guy.

Read comment 1st page, 3rd down:

Posted by: scott | December 11, 2009 3:34 PM

Scott, I take my hat off to you, 'bro. The best comment I've rea in days!! Keep commenting.

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Thanks for noting the self-promoting hackiness that is Matt Taibbi.

Without regard to truth or facts:

Taibbi is fun, Tim is vapid.

"Watching the congressional back-and-forth on this is a fascinating comic exercise, sort of like putting a chess board between a pair of beached Beluga whales and waiting for a game to break out."

-- Taibbi

Wee, Golleee...thanks Tim! I'm glad that we have a voice of reason to explain things. YOu mean there is no secret cabal? I read the original article and that is exactly what I got out of it. I'm glad there are people like you to help straighten things out for the average unsophisticated reader. From now on, I'll just stick to reading reasonable, moderate commentators like Tom Friedman.

This is my response to your shabby commentary Mr. Fernholtz:

Taibbi: "Geithner, in other words, is hired to head the U.S. Treasury by an executive from Citigroup — Michael Froman."

Your commentary: Froman didn't hire Geithner, Obama did, and the move had been expected long before Froman came on board the transition -- Froman had little to do with it other than aiding in vetting. Geithner had impressed Obama while briefing him during the crisis when he was President of the New York Fed and had been a senior Treasury official during the Clinton administration. He has never worked for a bank.

My Response: Of course Obama ultimately made the hiring decision but who do you think was advising him on who to bring in as Treasury Secretary? Maybe it’s because of your youth Mr. Fernholtz but you either think your readers are very naive or you are. Further, that Geithner was president of the NY Fed both before and while the financial crisis was developing was good reason to NOT hire him as Treasury Chief.

· Taibbi: "Neil Barofsky, the inspector general charged with overseeing TARP, estimates that the total cost of the Wall Street bailouts could eventually reach $23.7 trillion."
Your Commentary: It could, if every single loan guaranteed by the Federal government failed at once and all of the assets bought with those loans were destroyed – …”
My Response: And what if most of the debts are NOT paid back. More importantly, what moral hazard or precedent for Big Bailing Banks out in the future does this present with an even bigger bill for taxpayers?
· Taibbi: "A masterpiece of legislative chicanery, the measure would have given the White House permanent and unlimited authority to execute future bailouts of megaconglomerates like Citigroup and Bear Stearns."

· Your Commentary: Er, no. It allows the government to liquidate megaconglomerates like Citigroup and Bear Stearns, just as the FDIC dissolves failing small banks. It's not quite what we're looking for, yet -- there is a lot of legislating left to do -- but here's what the measure really does.

· My Response to your commentary: Taibbi said “the measure WOULD HAVE given”. For someone who is supposed to be a professional journalist it appears you haven’t learned the fine art of reading.Try it before you criticize the work of an investigative journalist who obviously put a lot of time into his work for the benefit of the pubic. I know this may be tough for boot-lickers who are trying to court favor with Rahm and the rest of the White House.
Your commentary, in my opinion, is either “scoop envy” or you simply don’t understand how the Washington/Wall Street connection works. If it is the second then I’m surprised you are able to sell any of your work.
Tom O’Keefe
President, The National Association of Investment Professionals

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3 Million foreclosures since Obama inaugurated. Millions of homeless children damaged for life. Generational ripples of twisted perceptions of the inability of parents to protect children that will in turn distort the parenting of today's foreclosed/evicted kids. Not what I expected from the Obama I voted for. Never again.

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That's either semantics or not dishonesty. either way it's misleading and incorrect.

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Are we supposed to be upset that people on Wall Street are making money again? I'm not. That is what Wall Street is supposed to do. The alternative of Wall Street losing money would be much, much worse.

Nice strawman. Geithner et al. ran the economy into the ground and taxpayers bailed out Wall Street.

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Both sides are right. Obama has indeed incorporated some of the elements of the status quo but that does not mean he has abandoned populist/grassroots elements of the movement. His character does not seem to lend itself to shallow power plays and he is smarter than Gietner and Sommers put together. He is not being played by them or the corporate elite...he is playing them, or rather utilizing them as useful tools for real progress. The so called grass roots left has legitimate concerns that are being heard. Be patient my friends, and dispense with the name calling before it divides us. Perhaps none of us are douches I guess is what I'm saying and Obama is certainly not one.

More apologies. Most of your critiques of Taibbi are irrelevant or barely make a dent in Taibbi's narrative. Read your own text again: you call the CFPA 'somewhat compromised', reaffirm that Karen Kornbluh has been shipped off to Siberia, etc. I'm tired of so-called progressives tamping down on outrage with these strained apologies. This is the time for populism.
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This Fernholz snark is an example of why I no longer subscribe to The American Prospect. His "fact" checking and personal attack on Taibbi is both trivial and opinion on his part. Maybe he's bucking for a job at Newsweek, replacing Joe Klein.

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He stated the Alabama gubernatorial candidate is "exploiting racial tensions." The only people who believe that are in the minority or liberals which, incidentally, the entity where he is employed is a hotbed of liberals.

Tim Fernholz is race baiting when he stated the Tim James ad is "exploiting racial tensions." The only people who believe that are liberals and Democrats. Sorry, but it won't work.

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This is pernicious for a lot of journalistic reasons, but politically it's bad for progressives beacuse conspiracy theories stand in the way of good policy analysis and good activism, replacing them with apathy and fear.

The only people who believe that are in the minority or liberals which, incidentally, the entity where he is employed is a hotbed of liberals.

When Matt Taibbi quotes as an example of really big bad pro market economics Peter Orszag totally innocuously saying "Market competition and globalization generate significant economic benefits" it is too clear that he is looking at it from such a faraway land he can never understand what happened.

Is it disconcerting that employees of the financial industry make a ton of money? Yes. Is it the revolving door between Washington and Wall Street problematic? Yes. Does the Administration take it too easy on the banks? Absolutely.

That's the basic thrust of the story.

"I just emailed him this piece, I'll see what he says..." He will not answer. This made errors in a so traind organisations JUST can't appear. And if they appeared this is someoane's intention, not other stuff.

Small hint: If you're going for the tactic of marginalising your opponent (you used both "conspiracy theorist" and "conspiracy theories" in the first paragraph), you may want to stay away from childish obtuseness such as "I thought it was ___ we had to be worried about".

That was an excellent take down of the glaring errors in the Taibbi piece. Some of your points could be construed as argumentative, but when Taibbi can't get his Rubins right, that should lend credence to the fact that his piece was not fact checked before publication.

As always, though, when you're lazy and can't think of anything, always call someone a douche. It's the calling card of the new left and proof they are running away from having to live in a reality-based world.

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That's the basic thrust of the story.

That was an excellent take down of the glaring errors in the Taibbi piece. Some of your points could be construed as argumentative, but when Taibbi can't get his Rubins right, that should lend credence to the fact that his piece was not fact checked before publication.

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If anything, Tim and anyone who gives a damn about good policymaking and honest discourse need to ignore the mouthbreathers who come here and leave comments that amount to nothing more than "u r a d0uche, Tim", and keep pounding away at Taibbi.