Matt Taibbi rocks.........again....and again...........

[samplegirl]

boy this guy has stones. no wonder he's not allowed on too many of the corporate owned media-themed outlets. david brooks is on his journalistic verbal karate chopping block...again.
....but then you come to this last line of his, in which he claims that “for the first time in history, rich people work longer hours than middle class or poor people,” and you find yourself almost speechless.
i would give just about anything to sit david brooks down in front of some single mother somewhere who’s pulling two shitty minimum-wage jobs just to be able to afford a pair of $19 mossimo sneakers at target for her kid, and have him tell her, with a straight face, that her main problem is that she doesn’t work as hard as jamie dimon.

only a person who has never actually held a real job could say something like this. there is, of course, a huge difference between working 80 hours a week in a profession that you love and which promises you vast financial rewards, and working 80 hours a week digging ditches for a septic-tank company, or listening to impatient assholes scream at you at some airport ticket counter all day long, or even teaching disinterested, uncontrollable kids in some crappy school district with metal detectors on every door.- matt taibbi



Labels: class warfare, journalists, matt taibbi

[saracat]

1. Oops . I meant to rec and clicked the wrong button K+R anyway!

I am so sorry!

[Ernesto]

2. works for me nt

[dotymed]

54. I like Matt, but,

he says that people are doing and thinking like they should be, when they are not. He is too optimistic. For example, he was on TeeVee the other night with Jesse Ventura. He said that now people are ready to create a third party because they realize that the two existing parties are corporate controlled. Well, it would be great if it were true. The majority of working class people are so stupid and scared they follow the idiot politicians who they (hopefully) know are lying and idiots. If the majority were actually behaving like Matt thinks they are, we could fix this country in short order. Unfortunately, Matt doesn't realize that first we have to teach these people that FOX is a lie, just like all of their "entertainers." Matt doesn't realize that most people are ignorant.

[Tansy_Gold]

3. It would help if you'd include a link. . . . . . n/t

[smokey nj]

4. Ask and you shall receive

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2010/04/10/brooks-let-them-eat-work/

[samplegirl]

5. thanks sorry I forgot!

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. One of the 4 people I read regualrly now.

He is good.

k&R

[mod mom]

7. We got a subsciption to RS to support this writing & cojones.

[Hestia]

14. We did too - subscribe to RS for Matt's articles - and the environmental stories also

[Me.]

8. Brooks Is Right, They Are The Ones Working Longer Hours

They're the only ones who still have jobs.

[tsuki]

16. +1

[laughingliberal]

23. Lol! That was my exact thought.

The only reason they are working longer hours now is no one else has any hours to work!

[Justpat]

49. A very sad but true point. n/t

[onpatrol98]

38. Foreclosures are up...

hmm...I hear foreclosures are catching up to this group.

[MadMaddie]

9. Brooks translated "Let them eat cake"!!

These people have no shame.

[Enthusiast]

33. Zactly nt

[GreenTea]

10. Need to subscribe to Rolling Stone again-haven't since HST was writing his best shit for the Stone!

Hunter S Thompson best stuff was some truly brilliant shit, but it was more than 20 & 30 years ago - when Thompson still "had" it...That stuff more than holds up today, very funny insightful Gonzo journalism!

Matt Taibbi is also excellent... at the lost art of investigative journalism...Thank YOU Jann Werner!!
(It cost big bucks for investigative research & reporting).

I just downloaded a few days ago, every issues of Rolling Stone to my HD - 40 years disc set - Great fun, and some truly great liberal progressive interviews & reading you won't find anywhere else, very interesting time capsule on liberalism from a kind of a rock n roll radical perspective.

[LuckyLib]

15. I'd subscribe, but every time I pick one up I am amazed that I have

absolutely no idea who the musicians in RS are . . . I admit to my boomer-hood, and relish the many years that RS featured stunning investigative journalism and great writing about music makers we all loved. :smoke:

[Mopar151]

17. Dood, it's a new century!

Read up, if they sound interesting to you, check 'em out on You Tube.

[LaPera]

25. Dude, I know the feeling....

Most I hear today, well, you know......and most of the youngsters don't have a clue, though they'll scream otherwise....That's why I've drifted away from rock, this commercialized rock, pretending, fake & phony posturing bands caught up in image & clear duplication that are clearly not very good, some even bad as opposed to true creativity and sounds that just move and kick ones ass...to the greats in Jazz and Blues....So Hot and Cool...But it is subjective, so I don't even bother to listen to the arguments unless I'm sure they are at the very least students of rock and the eras and the evolution....again, most don't have a clue....but they are happy with it, so let them enjoy...others will eventually want more real, passion, soul, creativity, quality, depth, tasty, hot movements one can't live without and will never forget.

Growing up in SF where Rolling Stone mag inception was and the Fillmore and Avalon and first underground rock FM station, KMPX - I was able to be happily force fed not only great rock n roll, but jazz & blues as well....So much music I've seen, great, good and bad I can't even begin to tell you without boring the shit out of you. However, there are a handful in rock now that I hear that knock me out...not much though as like everything else it's now corporate rock and what isn't, is the stuff I'll check out as well as local bands along the coast from Humboldt County to SF.

[samplegirl]

30. I feel the same way...but a friend gives me his.

Always something good to read in the RS.

[paparush]

41. RS has lots of "Listen Now" tracks on their site so you can give a listen to the bands you're readin

about.

I'm in the same boat. I can't keep up with all the bands. No one can. But, its nice to be able to listen to a track or two and decide if the sound is worth digging deeper into.

[ChiciB1]

43. Know What You Mean... As A Boomer Myself I Get Lost Too! However,

I know have some grandkids who are in their teens and we listen to some very good music together. Bill Maher had Billie Joe Armstrong/Green Day on and I patted myself on the back because I KNEW about him and the band!

But he has been around for a while, but as Bill said some of his new stuff is better than before!

[ChiciB1]

42. Matt Is Super & I've Been A Subscriber For Many, Many Years!

Didn't even know about the downloads! HOW COOL!! I have some very old & GREAT paper issues laying behind me on my bookshelf!

I've seen some here attack Matt at times, but I never understood why! Well, I DO understand... some people read one article he writes at any given time and they go ballistic because he doesn't agree with WH and/or D.C. politics!

However, anyone who regularly follows Matt, for the most part really do appreciate and respect him!

I ARE ONE OF THEM!!

[Webster Green]

56. How do you get the 40 year disc set?

That's cool.

[tblue37]

11. samplegirl, if you use the HTML tag "blockquote"

inside square brackets, the part by Taibbi will be offset. I couldn't figure out at first that you were quoting him. I thought those were your words in response to something Taibbi had written, rather than his actual words.

Alternatively, you could just put quotation marks around what you are quoting, so we know what part is a quote and what part consists of your own words.

Also, doublespacing between paragraphs helps readers, because long blocks of unbroken text are hard to read on the computer monitor. You did doublespace between the second to last and last paragraphs, but not between any of the others.

[samplegirl]

31. Thanks for the tips.

[BrklynLiberal]

12. David Brooks has long been a RW tool. He will intermittently arise from

his prone position under the repukes, when he thinks it will gain him some favors...but mostly, he is a RW asskisser of the first magnitude.

[Enthusiast]

34. He sure is, a RW tool.

I can't stand that fuck.

[peacetalksforall]

40. Absolutely right - he is right wing - he established who he was with me a long time ago and not

even one sentence from him makes me doubt my opinion.

[amborin]

13. K&R

[OhioBlue]

18. I suppose their work includes the "team meetings" in Vegas too

Actually- some of the bosses I have had, do work long hours and do stuff that I wouldn't want to have to do.. but they love it - the long hours stuff consists of ribbon cuttings, after-hours business social events, Country Club mixers, team meetings off location, etc. And.. of course, their after hours stuff doesn't mean that the lawn doesn't get mowed, or the laundry isn't done, or groceries aren't purchased or the kids don't get picked up from the sitter, etc.

[liberation]

19. Yet it begs to be asked: how many times are the middle and lower classes in the US going to tolerate

being told to eat cake?

[ejpoeta]

46. my feeling is that the ones that tolerate it are the ones who seem to think that when the

middle class is completely gone they will land on the OTHER side of the divide. it's like they are in denial and think they are in a higher tax bracket than they are.

[patrice]

20. We need to talk about the definition of Work and how to identify & assess "value added".

[bertman]

21. REC. Well said, samplegirl.

[Overseas]

22. K&R because I love Matt Taibbi too. //nt

[laughingliberal]

24. Rec. nt

[JDPriestly]

26. I worked both blue collar (including waiting tables, McDonalds and

washing dishes at a pizza parlor) and white collar. I'll take white collar any day even though at white collar I actually pulled 72-straight-through-day-and-nighter to meet a deadline and lots of 48-hourers.

You do work long hours in white-collar jobs, especially in law. But it's not the number of hours you work, not the number of weekends you spend in the office, not even vacation-less years or the Christmas Eves in the office while your family celebrates the holiday which are a part of some white-collar work I've done. You willingly deal with that when the paychecks are large enough, your co-workers really smart, and the work intellectually challenging. With one exception, the white-collar workplaces I've been in smelled good, and when I worked in them, I didn't go home to my kids smelling like a pig.

Yes, in my experience, after 72 hours in an air-conditioned office tower (even though I hadn't brushed my teeth much less taken a shower), I smelled and felt a lot fresher than after pulling just eight hours washing dishes in a pizza parlor.

Mr. Brooks needs to do some on-site research. Surely there is a pizza parlor somewhere that needs a mature dishwasher. Until he has washed dishes in a fast food joint for about six months, he is not qualified to talk about how hard white-collar work is.

[liberation]

55. As a kid, my dad enrolled me in all sorts of shitty jobs during my growing up summers...

Having to clean tons of cow manure, work on roofing in the middle of the hot summer, having to wake up at 5 AM to work 12 hrs straight during harvest season, etc, etc. all for shit pay. Gives one a clear appreciation for what an honest day of work looks like.

And in my opinion provides a case for why capital is such a useless metric to measure labor and wealth. The same CEO paying himself 10000x more than his or her average peon, sure as f*ck ain't working 10000x more or is worth 10000x more for he would be useless without the peons to begin with. There has to be a better system, I don't claim that everyone has the same talent or works/produces the same value. But the current approach is obviously incredibly flawed, so I don't think anyone has a real case as to why considering alternatives should be outlawed.

[JDPriestly]

57. You are absolutely right, liberation.

You only know what hard physical work is worth when you've done it.

Very few of the Wall Street dudes have done a lick of hard work in their lives. Some of the CEOs think getting up in the morning and arriving at a golf game in the afternoon on time are work. The compensation system needs to be changed drastically and pretty quickly.

Incentives are needed at all levels of the production chain. Right now, people at the top are getting all the incentives. Those at the bottom are getting too little. That's why the flow that makes an economy work is not happening.

[JohnnyRingo]

27. I'm a near lifetime subscriber.

Every month (since Wenner took over) features a pertainent and topical political article. Though I'm of an advanced vintage, I also like to keep up with who's making music today.

The past month had Clapton and Beck (Jeff, not Hanson) on the cover, with a rare sit down interview at Beck's 200 year old home. It's incredible that he's 9 months older than Eric.

4 Stars for RS, and a rec for SampleGirl.

[MarshalltheIrish]

28. To quote Duke Nukem: "He's got balls of steel!"

He's absolutely merciless in the way he destroys the epic thievery of Wall Street. Manages to lace together the complex tapestry of facts and terminology with a Hunter S. Thompson-style "fuck 'em" prose. "Obama's Wall Street Sellout" in particular should get him recognition from everyone across the political spectrum, and he hasn't let up since. For politics in general, his "Mad Dog Palin" is painfully right-on-the-money as well.

[underpants]

29. his blog-read his latest "Looting on Main Street:- JP Morgan bankrupts Birmingham Ala.

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/

[stevietheman]

45. I used Taibbi's piece to argue against a project in Jefferson County, Kentucky

Taibbi's piece illustrated so many aspects in common with the Ohio River Bridges Project, I wrote about the possibility of our local project becoming known as the "OR-BoP Swindle". Goldman Sachs is even involved with our megaproject. Egads!

http://www.historyandissues.org/louisville/viewtopic.php?t=2017

[Enthusiast]

32. This is a regular theme by

the "haves". They always suggest that poor people are poor because they don't work hard enough. They also suggest that America's poor are too rich because they have too many things-like cable TV. Limbaugh is great for doing this.

[hiphopnation]

35. fearless - love the closing paragraph

But it strikes me that David Brooks actually enjoys his chosen profession. In fact, he strikes me as the kind of person who even in his spare time would pay a Leona Helmsley lookalike a thousand dollars to take a shit on his back. And here he is saying that the reason the poor and the middle classes are struggling is because they don’t work hard enough. Is this guy the best, or what? Does it get any better than this?


:rofl:

[HillbillyBob]

44. Having met L Helmsley she was a big a Biatch as reported

and I really get a bee in my bonnet about those rich a holes that think that we are low lives because we actually get our hands dirty to make a living even to working 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet while they stiff us for our pay.

[voteearlyvoteoften]

36. Taibbi !

[amb123]

37. Matt Taibbi - A True Truth Teller

:patriot:

[AllyCat]

39. I get Rolling Stone just so I can read his articles every month.

Love his work, but have been told HERE no less, that he is a "substandard, sensationalist journalist".

[Orrex]

47. I used to work in financial services

I did a lot of processing of client accounts as well as accounts held in-house by employees of the company. One day I happened upon the account of the company's then-CIO, and I discovered that his net biweekly payroll deposit significantly exceeded my gross income.

I mentioned this in passing to my supervisor, with a sort of "get a load of this" kind of tone. She said that he's paid so much because that's how hard he works.

Well, I can pretty much guarantee that he didn't work 30X harder than I did, and he certainly didn't work 3X harder than all ten people in my department combined.

[asdjrocky]

48. Matt has spoken for me for a long time.

[spiritual_gunfighter]

50. I have posted a few Matt Taibbi OP's in the past

and been roundly slammed for doing so. So thank you for this, he rules.

[november3rd]

51. Poor David

We need to remind him the difference between rich and poor is just that, and that difference is what matters in this debate.

[pleah]

52. K&R

[AngryOldDem]

53. Reminds me of Bill Maher's rant against CBS's Undercover Boss.

Truck drivers have to piss in a bottle because they can't take time for breaks, and the CEOs are absolutely shocked when they find out about that.

Maher had a brilliant observation as well: As more of the middle class fall off the jobs treadmill, it takes those who are left to make that treadmill run. Fewer people are being asked to make that treadmill run exactly as it did under full power. Everybody is exhausted, and everybody is pissed.

Just finished reading Sorkin's "Too Big To Fail." None of the financial bigwigs are deserving of any IOTA of sympathy or support.

[Truth2Tell]

58. OK, I have to post the finale:

Most of the work in this world completely sucks balls and the only reward most people get for their work is just barely enough money to survive, if that. The 95% of people out there who spend all day long shoveling the dogshit of life for subsistence wages are basically keeping things running just well enough so that David Brooks, me and the rest of that lucky 5% of mostly college-educated yuppies can live embarrassingly rewarding and interesting lives in which society throws gobs of money at us for pushing ideas around on paper (frequently, not even good ideas) and taking mutual-admiration-society business lunches in London and Paris and Las Vegas with our overpaid peers.

Brooks is right that most of the people in that 5% bracket log heavy hours, but where he’s wrong is in failing to recognize that most of us have enough shame to know that what we do for a living isn’t really working. I pull absolutely insane hours in my current profession, to the point of having almost no social life at all, but I know better than to call what I do for a living work. I was on a demolition crew when I was much younger, the kind of job where you have to wear a dust mask all day long, carry buckets full of concrete, and then spend all night picking fiberglass shards out of your forearms from ripping insulation out of the wall.

-snip

Then again, maybe I’m looking at this from the wrong perspective. Would I rather clean army latrines with my tongue, or would I rather do what Brooks does for a living, working as a professional groveler and flatterer who three times a week has to come up with new ways to elucidate for his rich readers how cosmically just their lifestyles are? If sucking up to upper-crust yabos was my actual job and I had to do it to keep the electricity on in my house, then yes, I might look at that as work.

But it strikes me that David Brooks actually enjoys his chosen profession. In fact, he strikes me as the kind of person who even in his spare time would pay a Leona Helmsley lookalike a thousand dollars to take a shit on his back. And here he is saying that the reason the poor and the middle classes are struggling is because they don’t work hard enough. Is this guy the best, or what? Does it get any better than this?

...he strikes me as the kind of person who even in his spare time would pay a Leona Helmsley lookalike a thousand dollars to take a shit on his back.

:rofl:

[Quantess]

59. Monday night kick.

I missed this one yesterday.

[Fading Captain]

60. This is gold. This is fire.

This is the shit that can change America.