Link: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/tk-newsletter-introducing-racket
Graphic:
Excerpt:
In 2007, before the crash, Goldman, Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein even inadvertently paid tribute to one of the most ancient scams — the pig in the poke — when he ordered subordinates to start selling off the mortgage-backed “cats and dogs” on his company’s books. This detail, which came out in a Senate investigation of Goldman’s “Big Short,” let the “cat out of the bag” about the real value of mortgage-backed securities.
In 2021, we’re seeing a surge in con-like corruption cases once again, many involving old-school ripoffs. An economy puffed up by the steroid enhancement of Fed support has led to a great flowering of such creative grifts. Some are not terribly accessible to non-financial audiences at first glance, so to make it a bit easier to keep track of new cases coming in, I’m creating a new feature, “Racket of the Week.”
We had a cartoonist draw up icons for a key system, which will help explain how and if the story covered contains elements of common street rackets.
Author(s): Matt Taibbi
Publication Date: 7 May 2021
Publication Site: TK News