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Matt Taibbi is awful. This article, and all of his others, are hyperbolic demagoguery. This one is particular is so bad that I can't even bring myself to tear i

by tumult 14y ago

Matt Taibbi is awful. This article, and all of his others, are hyperbolic demagoguery. This one is particular is so bad that I can't even bring myself to tear it apart line by line. You're doing yourself an injustice by reading it. Unless you take pleasure in misinforming yourself and becoming angered over falsehoods, you're just playing into the hands of a particularly nefarious and persistent rabble-rouser.

anon808 14y ago
Your doing us an injustice by not tearing it apart. Help us, inform us. He may be a rabble rouser prone to hyperbole, but that by itself doesn't mean what he's writing is false. Look past the drama and tell us what's incorrect.
- davidw 14y ago
  You're all doing us an injustice by not flagging it so that it and other off-topic articles like it are not relentlessly expunged from this site.
mafro 14y ago
I'll give you that 75% of this article is unnecessary hyperbole which adds nothing to the central message. The central message is very interesting though.
- pja 14y ago
  But without the hyperbole, people won't get engaged, they won't get angry. Now, to some extent that engagement is being sought in order to sell Rolling Stone, but I think that both Matt and the Rolling Stone editors believe that they're talking about something that matters & that people should be angry about. Hence the hyperbole. If they wrote a dry academic paper and published it in some economics journal somewhere it might contain exactly the same information but it would have negligible impact.
  - davidw 14y ago
    > But without the hyperbole, people won't get engaged, they won't get angry. As above, "getting people angry" about stuff that is very tangentially related to hacker news is a good indication it's a bad fit for this site. There are so many other sites on the internet to discuss politics, economics and things of that ilk. In the grand scheme of things, those topics are more important than "hacker news" and could easily "crowd out" our "dry" discussions of computers and startups here.
  - tedunangst 14y ago
    If they wanted to get people angry, they should follow the money and show where all the money used to build a new hospital goes, but Taibbi's axe doesn't grind that way.
- namdnay 14y ago
  Bear in mind that RS is a magazine, not a newspaper. It's not just supposed to inform you, it's also meant to be a nice read.
- bstpierre 14y ago
  "[Top executives were] plunged into years of nut-crushing negotiations [...]" Perhaps unnecessary hyperbole, but entertaining nonetheless. If you want "just the facts" without the hyperbole, read the indictment [1]. FWIW, I find the RS article to be a more pleasant read. [1]: http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f261600/261602.htm http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f261600/261602.htm
- laserDinosaur 14y ago
  Yeah, sentences like "this was like the scam in Office Space, multiplied by a factor of about 10 gazillion: Banks stole pennies at a time from towns all over America, only they did it a few hundred bazillion time" struck me as really poorly written.
corford 14y ago
Which bits do you have a problem with exactly (or do you work in finance and the article has just rubbed you up the wrong way)? If you strip out the Rolling Stone literary tone and just focus on the facts of the article, "The Scam Wall Street Learned From the Mafia" is a fairly accurate title.

by tumult 14y ago

anon808 14y ago

Your doing us an injustice by not tearing it apart. Help us, inform us. He may be a rabble rouser prone to hyperbole, but that by itself doesn't mean what he's writing is false. Look past the drama and tell us what's incorrect.

davidw 14y ago
You're all doing us an injustice by not flagging it so that it and other off-topic articles like it are not relentlessly expunged from this site.

mafro 14y ago

I'll give you that 75% of this article is unnecessary hyperbole which adds nothing to the central message. The central message is very interesting though.

pja 14y ago
But without the hyperbole, people won't get engaged, they won't get angry. Now, to some extent that engagement is being sought in order to sell Rolling Stone, but I think that both Matt and the Rolling Stone editors believe that they're talking about something that matters & that people should be angry about. Hence the hyperbole. If they wrote a dry academic paper and published it in some economics journal somewhere it might contain exactly the same information but it would have negligible impact.
- davidw 14y ago
  > But without the hyperbole, people won't get engaged, they won't get angry. As above, "getting people angry" about stuff that is very tangentially related to hacker news is a good indication it's a bad fit for this site. There are so many other sites on the internet to discuss politics, economics and things of that ilk. In the grand scheme of things, those topics are more important than "hacker news" and could easily "crowd out" our "dry" discussions of computers and startups here.
- tedunangst 14y ago
  If they wanted to get people angry, they should follow the money and show where all the money used to build a new hospital goes, but Taibbi's axe doesn't grind that way.
namdnay 14y ago
Bear in mind that RS is a magazine, not a newspaper. It's not just supposed to inform you, it's also meant to be a nice read.
bstpierre 14y ago
"[Top executives were] plunged into years of nut-crushing negotiations [...]" Perhaps unnecessary hyperbole, but entertaining nonetheless. If you want "just the facts" without the hyperbole, read the indictment [1]. FWIW, I find the RS article to be a more pleasant read. [1]: http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f261600/261602.htm http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f261600/261602.htm
laserDinosaur 14y ago
Yeah, sentences like "this was like the scam in Office Space, multiplied by a factor of about 10 gazillion: Banks stole pennies at a time from towns all over America, only they did it a few hundred bazillion time" struck me as really poorly written.

corford 14y ago

Which bits do you have a problem with exactly (or do you work in finance and the article has just rubbed you up the wrong way)? If you strip out the Rolling Stone literary tone and just focus on the facts of the article, "The Scam Wall Street Learned From the Mafia" is a fairly accurate title.