Journalist Matt Taibbi has delved further than most into the debris left behind the financial meltdown on Wall Street in 2008, and he’s not shy about reporting what he’s seen.
Taibbi says the story of that Wall Street collapse isn’t over, despite reports in recent years that the money taxpayers shelled out to save the worst offender banks has been repaid.
Matt Taibbi will be appearing with Senator Bernie Sanders for two forum discussions in Burlington Friday on this and other financial topics.
In a Rolling Stone article about the $700 billion taxpayer funded bailout of Wall Street, which has been lauded by those who authorized it for saving the country from a second Great Depression and for the banks repaying every dime of that bailout money-Taibbi wrote that those two assertions constitute, "one of the biggest and most elaborate falsehoods ever sold to the American people."
Taibbi says the biggest reason "is that the $700 billion in the TARP bailout is only a portion of the bailout, most of the bailout came in other programs that came out of the federal reserve that are lesser known."
He says a lot of the companies simply went to the federal reserve to take out trillions of dollars in loans at 0 percent interest.
"This is something Bernie Sanders helped us find out when he and Ron Paul worked together to secure an audit of the Federal Reserve," Taibbi explained.
Taibbi says there are some encouraging signs that momentum is building in Washington toward reforming the banks.
"There’s genuine panic and fear on the Hill among regulators and among members of the Senate and the House that these banks have gotten out of control," Taibbi said.
Taibbi will be discussing these issues with Senator Bernie Sanders on Friday at two events in Burlington.
Click listen to hear the interview.