Trust Us – We’re Experts
“Trust us, We’re Experts” is the title of a 2001 book that exposed chemical industry propaganda campaigns to promote absurd ideas – hilarious notions like toxic heavy metal laden sewage sludge is good fertilizer. So, I recalled that book while reading Matt Taibbi’s devastating recent Rolling Stone piece on the financial meltdown:
” “We spend hours and hours and hours arguing over $10 million amendments on the floor of the Senate,but there has been no discussion about who has been receiving this $3 trillion,” says Sen. Bernie Sanders. “It is beyond comprehension.”
[…]
The most galling thing about this financial crisis is that so many Wall Street types think they actually deserve not only their huge bonuses and lavish lifestyles but the awesome political power their own mistakes have left them in possession of. When challenged, they talk about how hard they work, the 90-hour weeks, the stress, the failed marriages, the hemorrhoids and gallstones they all get before they hit 40.
“But wait a minute,” you say to them. “No one ever asked you to stay up all night eight days a week trying to get filthy rich shorting what’s left of the American auto industry or selling $600 billion in toxic, irredeemable mortgages to ex-strippers on work release and Taco Bell clerks. Actually, come to think of it, why are we even giving taxpayer money to you people? Why are we not throwing your ass in jail instead?”
But before you even finish saying that, they’re rolling their eyes, because You Don’t Get It. These people were never about anything except turning money into money, in order to get more money; valueswise they’re on par with crack addicts, or obsessive sexual deviants who burgle homes to steal panties. Yet these are the people in whose hands our entire political future now rests.
Read the rest of this outstanding piece:
The Big Takeover
The global economic crisis isn’t about money – it’s about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution
MATT TAIBBI
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover/print
The Titanic was built by experts.
Noah’s ark was built by an amateur.
Whose ship would you rather be saling on?