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Who the BLEEP is Matt Taibbi?

Published: Oct 20, 2010

 Finance       

That's what many folks have wondered over the years following several controversial cover stories written by the journalist who famously coined the phrase "vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity" to describe investment bank Goldman Sachs.

Some folks have since receieved answers (as well as hot coffee tossed in their faces by Mr. Taibbi) but those who haven't might now have a chance to get a few, thanks to Taibbi's latest book, Griftopia.

In it, Taibbi revisits the causes of the credit crisis (which, he says, has more than a little to do with author Ayn Rand), Goldman Sachs (another guilty party and, of course, evil mollusk) and his Rolling Stone article on Goldman (Taibbi writes about the genesis of the piece as well as the craze that followed its printing).

Griftopia will be released November 2nd; in the meantime, here's an excerpt as well as a rather worthwhile New York Observer interview with Taibbi in which he admits, among other things, that the now ubiquitous "vampire squid" phrase that appeared in his summer 2009 article "The Great American Bubble Machine" was "originally just a throwaway line, and they [Rolling Stone] put it up at the top."

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