Goldman, Taibbi, CNBC intrigue deepens

A short time ago, the following appeared over at Matt Taibbi's blog, now it's gone. What you see below is from an RSS feed, a mechanism that is often slow to update deleted material. Recall that this follows yesterday's dust-up between Taibbi and CNBC's Charlie Gasparino.

Thanks, Charlie Gasparino

A bigger issue lost in all the back-and-forth about the firm’s connections, trading habits, and where Lloyd Blankfein was the night of September 15, 2008 when Lehman went bust, is that the American taxpayer is right this very moment subsidizing Goldman’s risk taking. That’s a scandal no one seems to want to talk about.

via Stop Blaming Goldman Sachs - The Daily Beast.

A lot of people are writing to me wondering when I’m going to respond to Charlie Gasparino, who took time out between martinis recently to take a shot at me in the above column.

As it happens I was already beginning work on a chapter on CNBC for my next book, as in recent weeks I’ve had several Wall Street executives call me to complain about certain practices at that network that should probably be shared with the public. So I’m working on that, and I think that is the appropriate forum in which to talk not only about Gasparino but about the other excellent reporters in the CNBC stable, who as we all know did such a terrific job standing up to their advertisers and exposing the dangers that lay ahead in the years leading up to the financial crisis.

In the meantime, here’s a little taste of the tactics CNBC uses to suck up to its potential interview subjects. The network, for instance, likes to brag to its pals on Wall Street about what a good job it does beating up on the poor. Here’s an email Dennis Kneale sent to a buddies list that includes some Wall Street executives:

From: Kneale, Dennis (NBC Universal)
[mailto:Dennis.Kneale@nbcuni.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 6:12 PM
To: Kneale, Dennis (NBC Universal)
Subject: fight night at 8pm on cnbc

hey guys, thought i’d show you a politically correct moment on my show last night: the poor are better off than you think. take a look! best, dk

Beneath which Kneale included a link to a clip in which he argues, basically, that the poor are not suffering because 65% of poor families own their own washing machine, according to some idiotic study or other. Hell, with stats like that, who needs to actually interview people?

Anyone else out there who has CNBC stories is invited to write in, especially if you’ve had dealings with the network’s producers.

Interesting...