Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi: Is Wall Street Basically Organized Crime?

Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi recently appeared on the Max Keiser Report to talk about why he considers his work—covering Wall Street—to be akin to writing “an organized crime story.” Since 2008, Taibbi has covered the big banks and their role in our troubled economic times, publishing influential pieces on the Bank of America, and, perhaps most famously, Goldman Sachs. Taibbi is currently working on his second book, a follow-up to the bestselling, Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History.

An excerpt from Matt Taibbi’s interview (in the video above, go straight to 12:32 for his segment):

Max Kaiser: You’re writing all these stories about banks, and what’s going on on Wall Street.  Are you writing about finance, or are you writing about crime stories?

Matt Taibbi: The lines have gotten so blurred. It’s basically an organized crime story. And that’s what I’m trying to do lately: is convince readers that it’s not an economics story, or a finance story—it’s organized crime. There’s no difference at all.