The Rolling Stone's sprawling take-down of Bank of America is being cited in publications around the country as possibly the most critical piece on Bank of America in the bank's history.
While it has not generated the amount of attention that the now-infamous "Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs" op-ed that appeared in The New York Times earlier this week did, the magazine article, which mocks the bank's history and says the bank has tried to deceive every class of its customers, has sent its share of waves around the business and political world.
The article lampoons Bank of America and Wachovia's dueling skyscraper projects as a phallic arms race and dismisses Hugh McColl as a "strutting Southern peacock" determined to tear down the nation's banking laws. The piece also accuses the bank of "every kind of lending fraud imaginable" as it details the numerous allegations against the bank since the financial crisis.
It also passes blame to the government, which the author asserts bailed out the "admitted felon" numerous times.
Business Insider calls the piece "the harshest thing we've ever read about Bank Of America." Liberal outlet AMERICAblog called the piece a "must read," turning the issue political by calling President Bush and President Obama's support for the financial system an assault on the Constitution.
Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi has become known for this type of piece. Two years ago, he called Goldman Sachs a "great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money."
Fierce Finance opined that this piece won't gain the same notoriety, but called it a distinctive take on the massive wave of lawsuits against the Charlotte bank.
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12 comments:
Matt Taibbi is the single greatest investigative reporter working in this nation today. Period.
He should be awarded a Pulitzer on a monthly basis, if not more frequently.
Since this is a Taibbi piece, I will be reading it, several times. I am a 25-year BofA customer (way back to the days of NCNB) and a beaten-up and nearly-ruined BofA stockholder, but I still welcome any and all exposure this criminal syndicate - and the criminal syndicate involving both parties of our government - can be subjected to.
Thank you, Mr. Taibbi, and thank you, Rolling Stone, for proving that you are no longer "just a Rock 'n Roll"magazine "but, rather, are one of the few true journalistic entities left in this terminally corrupt nation.
Matt Taibbi has zero credibility. He is a sexist as well as a left-wing hack. In 2009, he wrote in his blog the following about a conservative woman, Malkin, “When I read [Malkin’s] stuff, I imagine her narrating her text, book-on-tape style, with a big, hairy set of b#$@a in her mouth.” Classy. now we are to take him seriously when talking about BofA?
Say what you want about Matt Taibbi but his investigative journalism is top notch. This particular article doesn't pull any punches on the left or the right on the handling of this bank. Basically BAC has put its set of big hairy ba115 in all our mouths... A must read!
Bank of America *IS* corrupt. Thanks Mr. Taibbi, but we already knew that.
This kind of analysis has already been done and done and done. Shadowstats, USA Watchdog, Infowars, and plenty of other sites have pointed out these things in far greater detail and frequency.
This is simply the OLD media patting itself on the back for doing occasionall what the NEW media does on a daily basis.
By the way, BofA isn't the only corrupt bank. There are worse. JP Morgan-Chase and Wells Fargo come to mind.
Then there is the Grand Daddy of all Corruption, the investment bank Goldman-Sachs.
A REAL investigative reporter might ask why Mr Taibbi singled out BofA for his "sprawling take down."
-Ken
Laser Guided Loogie
While Matt Taibbi's style may be colorful, he's one of the few journalists willing to confront the behavior and ethics of the financial industry. There was a time you just assumed your bank was a prudent, responsible institution, but that seems to be long gone (& the larger the bank, the less likely you are to see concern for the needs of customers). I hope all Bank of America customers will read this and consider its message.
Please, this is piling on at the eleventh hour. Jounalism should be breaking news, not rehashed old news - and should not be libelous and incendiary for the sake of being "published". #hack
Can't believe Dunn and Pittman took their lips off of BofA's backside long enough to post this...The Observer is living right here in the belly of the beast and yet has remained stunningly silent on the banksters wholesale takeover of our homes, our land records, our politicians, regulatory agencies and even our courts. How far the watchdog of the might has fallen...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1645089/
Watch the movie "Inside Job".
The fox is in charge of the hen house and we are the hens. Only the 1% are making money, the rest of us are getting hosed royal.
It should be humiliating that it takes a writer from Rolling Stone magazine to document the crimes, issues, ethical problems and other problems of one of Charlotte's largest reporters.
Why hasn't the Observer done any in-depth investigative reporting on BoA? We all know why: it's called homefield advantage. The Observser will never report much negative & original investigative reporting on BoA because they live & work so close by. Rick Rothracker, as nice of a guy as he is, cannot find it in him to actually do the job of a reporter and ask good detailed questions. If he did or would, he would be known as a real reporter and not a hack who writes a a chesy, feel-good memoir about the RIse of Wachovia & BoA called 'BankTown'.
The Observer should be embarrassed.
Exactly, QC. the VERY least they could do is publish some of the shocking findings from the AG slap on the wrist, er, settlement. And the AGs left out most of the more shocking actions taken by the banks! It is not just the 4th estate who has let us down...every institution in NC has - why is our Registrar of Deeds silent? Roy Cooper talked a big game in 2010 and then suddenly clammed up - why? The NC Banking Commissioner, who (allegedly) regulates mortgage servicers, doesn't even pretend to enforce any of the (very few, lax) laws against them. And we all cash our paychecks and tax payments and campaign contributions laundered by the bank with the blood of the poor,they helpless, and the ever dwindling middle class, and look the other way.
http://www.foreclosurehamlet.org/video/web-extra-interview-w-naked-capitalism-s-yves-smith-on-mortgage
http://4closurefraud.org/2012/03/15/matt-stoller-neil-barofsky-dont-believe-hype-about-25b-mortgage-settlement-video/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=matt-stoller-neil-barofsky-dont-believe-hype-about-25b-mortgage-settlement-video
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