General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Matt Taibbi's truthiness analyzed [View all]MFrohike
(1,980 posts)Your first link should be deleted. It's almost 6 years old and has been so completely overtaken by events that it's not even funny. I'll include links of my own.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2009/12/13/obamas-big-sellout-president-has-packed-his-economic-team-wall-street-insiders
The story under discussion. I couldn't find the original Rolling Stone link, so I hope this will suffice. While it's typical over-the-top Taibbi style, Andrew Leonard's carefully picked complaints are quite noteworthy. Not a word about Gary Gensler in his article. There is a claim that Taibbi called Austan Goolsbee a populist, which the quick use of CTRL-F will decisively disprove. Taibbi said that Goolsbee emphasized populist themes, going so far as to say that AIG executives should receive a Nobel Prize for evil. While it doesn't seem like much of a complaint, bear in mind that Leonard hyped the phrase "could eventually reach" into a definitive statement. What's good for the goose is a good rule to use in this case.
http://www.salon.com/2009/12/11/matt_taibbi_barack_obama/
This is a working link to the original Leonard article. Well, I hope it works. I had to manually search for it. Read the Taibbi piece, then read Leonard's piece. Decide for yourself who's got a bigger problem with the truth.
http://www.levyinstitute.org/publications/29000000000000-a-detailed-look-at-the-feds-bailout-by-funding-facility-and-recipient
For fun, here's a paper from a UMKC grad student on the total cost of the bailout support offered by the Fed. It's actually a bit higher than Barofsky's estimate in 2009.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/suskind-book-female-advisers-in-obama-white-house-sidelined-and-ignored/2011/09/16/gIQAAOSSXK_story.html
Leonard highlighted the role of Christina Romer in his article as a way of refuting Taibbi's claim that Obama's economic team was too close to Wall Street. The link above adds some context to her role on the economic team by way of a review of Ron Suskind's book, Confidence Men.
Edit: I can't speak to the rest of the links. I'm not terribly familiar with the subject under discussion in them. I do have to wonder about them. If the first link was that terrible in terms of its own "truthiness," what would I find if I check the rest?