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Columbia Journalism Review content tagged Matt Taibbi

1. February 17, 2011 04:23 PM

   Audit Notes: Goldman’s Marks, Taibbi, Dakota Tea, etc.

   By Dean Starkman

   I like Bill Cohan's clearly written column explaining how Goldman marked its mortgage assets lower than everyone else, then aggressively pursued collateral on its insurance contracts, setting off a chain reaction that crashed AIG. And he's good to keep reading the FCIC report, which was, as he says, largely buried by many of us in the press before it...

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2. November 28, 2012 06:50 AM

   Audit Notes: FT’s Fairhead is out; BofA CEO stonewalls; Rent a Quote

   But Pearson says the paper is not for sale.

   By Ryan Chittum

   FT Group CEO Rona Fairhead got denied the top job at Pearson and so is stepping down as chairman and CEO of its unit the FT Group, with a $1.8 million exit package. The Guardian's Nils Pratley asks a good question: "Why is Pearson paying Rona Fairhead to go?" The New York Times reports that the new Pearson CEO visited...

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3. May 24, 2011 08:11 PM

   Audit Notes: Insider Trading on the Hill, Taibbi, Deficit vs. Jobs Coverage

   By Ryan Chittum

   Dan Froomkin of The Huffington Post reports on some very interesting research finding that the investment portfolios of members of Congress substantially outperform the stock market. I'd expect their portfolios to do a bit better than the market average, but the study found Congress beat the stock market by an average 6 percent a year over sixteen years. Senators beat...

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4. August 2, 2012 06:50 AM

   Audit Notes: Taibbi on TBTF, the paranoid rich, Olympics

   An NYT op-ed elides some critical context

   By Ryan Chittum

   It's unclear why The New York Times is running op-eds on finance from a guy who is still operating under an SEC ban as part of a settlement in a kickback investigation. But Steve Rattner, Obama's former car czar, gets prime space to argue that Too Big to Fail banks should remain Too Big to Fail. A bit of recent...

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5. November 10, 2011 01:24 AM

   Audit Notes: The Euro Crisis’s 1930s Parallels, Taibbi on Bloomberg

   By Ryan Chittum

   The eurozone crisis is now at its worst point with Italy's interest rates at unsustainable rates and quite possibly past the point of no return. Berkeley economist Brad DeLong says radical measures are required to stave off a second Great Depression: I have been complaining for some time now that Reinhart and Rogoff think that the time is always 1931...

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6. May 17, 2011 02:37 PM

   Lowenstein Lets Wall Street Off the Hook

   Not so fast.

   By Ryan Chittum

   Roger Lowenstein has a big piece out in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, an apology for Wall Street—duly celebrated by The New York Times's Andrew Ross Sorkin on Twitter as "courageous" and "probably right"—arguing "Wall Street: Not Guilty."

 What's with our elite financial journalists? 

Problem is, this piece is based on a straw man: that fire-breathing critics of Wall Street like Taibbi and,...

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7. August 19, 2011 10:58 AM

   Matt Taibbi vs. the SEC

   Rolling Stone gets no credit from most of the press for a huge scoop

   By Felix Salmon

   Matt Taibbi’s 5,000-word exposé of the SEC’s document-shredding is a magnificent piece of journalism, and is the first and last place that you should look to understand what’s going on here. After the piece came out, Senator Chuck Grassley—who’s quoted in the article—made growling noises in the general direction of the SEC, which is now very much on the back...

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8. April 12, 2011 02:11 PM

   Taibbi on a Fed Bailout the Business Press Buried

   By Ryan Chittum

   Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone zeroes in on an interesting detail from the Federal Reserve's bailouts: The Fed lent big bucks to an investment vehicle led by Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack's wife and the widow of a Morgan Stanley executive—people Taibbi reports have no "serious" business experience: But if you want to get a true sense of what the...

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9. June 23, 2011 12:48 PM

   The Crazy Book-Banning Lady Who Wants to be President (UPDATED)

   Matt Taibbi’s colorful takedown of “Mad” Michele Bachmann

   By Joel Meares

   Last week, The Daily Beast’s Michelle Goldberg authored what one might have reasonably expected would be the most vicious takedown of GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann we would likely see before the primaries began. From the mainstream press, at least. Opening with the increasingly infamous tale of Bachmann screaming in a bathroom that she was being held against her will...

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