John Boehner is the ultimate Beltway hack, a man whose unmatched and self-serving skill at political survival has made him, after two decades in Washington, the hairy blue mold on the American congressional sandwich.
Matt Taibbi2008 was to the American economy what 9/11 was to national security. Yet while 9/11 prompted the U.S. government to tear up half the Constitution in the name of public safety, after 2008, authorities went in the other direction.
Matt TaibbiThis story is the ultimate example of Americanโs biggest political problem. We no longer have the attention span to deal with any twenty-first century crisis. We live in an economy that is immensely complex and we are completely at the mercy of the small group of people who understand it โ who incidentally often happen to be the same people who built these wildly complex economic systems. We have to trust these people to do the right thing, but we canโt, because, well, theyโre scum. Which is kind of a big problem, when you think about it.
Matt TaibbiIn the old days, when you took out a mortgage, it was probably through a local bank or a credit union, and whoever gave you your loan held on to it for life. If you lost your job or got too sick to work and suddenly had trouble making your payments, you could call a human being and work things out.
Matt Taibbi