The talk show “On Point” on Boston’s NPR station WBUR has a must-hear hour on Goldman Sachs & Co.. The springboard is investigative reporter Matt Taibbi’s exposé, “The Great American Bubble Machine.”
[audio:http://www.bu.edu/wbur/storage/2009/07/onpoint_0721_1.mp3]
(Note: I’m hot-linking this audio from ‘BUR, and it isn’t on my server, so it may disappear.)
Taibbi rips apart the understandably defensive, but ludicrous, arguments put forth by Goldman Sachs consultant Charles Ellis, who claims to be outraged by the excesses of the market — yet he insists the blame lies with government regulators and complicit consumers, but not the banks. I feel that Ellis and his ilk deserve to be treated with ridicule, condescension and derision.
Taibbi also tears into President Obama, for paying lip-service to an end of lobbyist influence and bonus-driven business as usual on Wall Street. I’m becoming increasingly disappointed with Obama for what he isn’t doing, in contrast to Bush, who I hated for what he was doing.