(Yes, I know he went to jail for tax evasion, not bank-robbery, sheesh) The pension funds and other investors whose resources were stolen are left holding the very empty bag, with no Lone Ranger riding to the rescue. Newspaper headlines about a massive theft are remarkably absent, and ultimately, unlike the situation with Capone, no one goes to jail. But if a corporate leach like, say, Barclay’s Bank, steals $10 billion, no one goes on the FBI’s Ten-Most-Wanted list. If Al Capone stole, say, a million dollars from a bank there would be no question that he was a bank-robber and a dangerous felon. See? Even the terminology that pops to mind is a form of cover-up. He decided to look at how the legal system treats street crime and fiscal malfeasance. If you get off on seeing what is going on behind the curtains, this constitutes good times.

His previous book, Griftopia, went into considerable detail about how debt is used by large corporations to ensnare customers, how commodity speculation screws us all, how some politicians are selling off public assets for their private political gain and how the vampire squid that is Goldman Sachs has been draining the fiscal blood from the planet. Matt Taibbi is widely known and respected as a hard-hitting author and financial reporter/editor for Rollingstone Magazine. There is no law, only power.The author looks at some of the details of how this is manifested in the USA, and offers, in addition, some insight into the psychology of criminal targeting.

The Divide by Matt Taibbi