Taibbi on AIG

If you're like me, you find the daily talk of "the recession" depressing enough to make your ears bleed.

But here's two comforting facts: It's going to get much, much worse, and it's going to last much, much longer than anyone expects or wants.

OK, comforting wasn't the right word there.

So buckle up, or whatever. Get some headphones. It's all anyone is going to talk about for the next 3 years, at a minimum.

And when you read a clear, well-reported analysis like the one offered by Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi, you begin to develop the frightening picture in your mind. This should be required reading for every man, woman and child in the country.

Because you realize that these financial guys, these "free market" gurus, they're nothing more than common criminals on the grandest of stages. Is there a more helpless feeling in the world? They've infiltrated the government and it's systems of power and regulation and turned them into a big, fat joke. And they allowed themselves to become so big that the entire economy rests in their hands: big, fat companies that are "too big to fail."

So we must bail them out to save the system, which led to the corruption and greed in the first place, because the hunger for bigger profits is all it is based on.

It remains to be seen, but the 2008 election is beginning to look like a puppet show, an expensive, highly choreographed sporting event that had no real meaning or importance. Because these financial guys are still swarming. McCain would have brought with him Phil Gramm, a co-conspirator in this entire mess. Obama bought with him Richard Holbrooke, the pig Larry Summer, Geithner, and countless others.

Some fucking choice.