Over the years, many in the public have become numb to news of financial corruption, partly because too many of these stories involve banker-on-banker crime.
Matt TaibbiThere is a reason it used to be a crime in the Confederate states to teach a slave to read: Literacy is power.
Matt TaibbiTo Wall Street, a firm like BP isn't just a profitable energy company with lots of assets like oil rigs and pipelines and gas stations - it's also a corporation that routinely borrows hundreds of millions of dollars to keep its business up and running.
Matt TaibbiThe mistake our politicians so often make with these industry leaders is in thinking they are interested in, or respectful of, the power of government. All they want is to keep stealing. If you can offer them the governmentโs seal of approval on that, theyโll take it. But if you canโt, well, theyโll take that too.
Matt Taibbi