Matt Taibbi | RollingStone.com
26 Sept 2013
[Excerpt] This is the third act in an improbable triple-fucking of
ordinary people that Wall Street is seeking to pull off as a shocker
epilogue to the crisis era. Five years ago this fall, an epidemic of
fraud and thievery in the financial-services industry triggered the
collapse of our economy. The resultant loss of tax revenue plunged
states everywhere into spiraling fiscal crises, and local governments
suffered huge losses in their retirement portfolios – remember, these
public pension funds were some of the most frequently targeted suckers
upon whom Wall Street dumped its fraud-riddled mortgage-backed
securities in the pre-crash years.
Today, the same Wall Street crowd that caused the crash is not merely
rolling in money again but aggressively counterattacking on the
public-relations front. The battle increasingly centers around public
funds like state and municipal pensions. This war isn't just about
money. Crucially, in ways invisible to most Americans, it's also about
blame. In state after state, politicians are following the Rhode Island
playbook, using scare tactics and lavishly funded PR campaigns to cast
teachers, firefighters and cops – not bankers – as the budget-devouring
boogeymen responsible for the mounting fiscal problems of America's
states and cities.
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