迪兰•拉提根的无耻混蛋

    迪兰•拉提根到底觉得他这本新书《贪婪混蛋》的读者有多蠢呢？

    拉提根是MSNBC电视台同名节目的主持人，他使用大富翁游戏来阐释银行体系的运作方式，为此，他首先向读者解释了每位玩家拥有的起始资金的组成（“两张500美元、两张100美元、两张50美元，等等”）。他还发明了分别称为“获取奖杯”和“制造奖杯”的游戏，以展示资本主义如何运行，并凸显传统银行与系统重要金融机构（SIFI）——那些大到不能倒的银行——之间的区别，对这些虚构游戏的解释写了好几页。

    他甚至觉得有必要向读者解释，“付多少钱享受什么样的服务”这个表述到底是什么意思。

    拉提根本人可不是傻瓜，他曾在彭博社做编辑，在CNBC做过节目主持，美国金融危机爆发后，政府紧急救助了多家银行和汽车厂商，此后拉提根成为大政府、大企业的活跃批评者。（愤世嫉俗之人可能会说，他朝着民粹主义的转型与其说是信仰所致，不如说是战略选择，当他在CNBC工作的时候，他恐怕不是该电视台的“民众代言人”，对于自己开着保时捷的胖小子这一形象，他似乎也颇为满足。）

    除了上述过度阐释的情形之外，拉提根的作品跳跃性过于严重，还没说清楚某人为何是他笔下的“吸血鬼”，就开始大加控诉。书中关于教育的一章将助学贷款行业当成了坏人，营利性的大学也不是好种，至于银行（“银行大盗”）也非善类——因为他们允许家庭二次抵押自己的房产，以支付孩子的大学学费。他的论点是：这些机构通过说客和政治献金，将监管体系玩弄于股掌之上，学生们则为了一钱不值的学位，而欠下堆积如山的债务。为了还清这些债务，许多学生又不得不自己变成银行大盗和吸血鬼。他的言下之意，似乎是证券从业人士正使众多美国家庭趋于破产，而其唯一目的只是让自己的孩子可以获得一纸卖身契，为投行效劳。

    Just how dumb does Dylan Ratigan think readers of his new book, Greedy Bastards, are?

    Ratigan, host of an eponymous MSNBC show, uses the game of Monopoly to illustrate how the banking system functions but first explains to his readers how to dole out the $1,500 each player starts with ("two $500s, two $100s, two $50s, and so on"). He invents games called "Take a Cup" and "Make a Cup" to demonstrate how capitalism works and the difference between traditional banks and systematically important financial institutions, or SIFIs -- banks that are too big to fail -- and riffs on these make-believe games for pages on end.

    He even feels the need to explain to his readers what the expression "you get what you pay for" means.

    Ratigan himself is no dummy. He's a former Bloomberg editor and CNBC anchor who became a vocal critic of big government and big business following the U.S. financial crisis and subsequent government bailout of banks and automakers. (A cynic might say his conversion to populism was more strategic than religious; when he was on CNBC he wasn't exactly the network's man of the people, and he seemed content to be portrayed as a Porche-driving, frat-boy type.)

    When Ratigan isn't over-explaining, he's jumping from one subject to another, prosecuting villains before making the case for why they're "vampires" in Ratigan parlance. A section on education declares the student-loan industry bad guys. Ditto for-profit universities. And banks ("banksters") are baddies for enabling families to take out second mortgages to pay for their kids' college tuitions. His argument: These institutions, with their lobbyists and political contributions, are gaming the regulatory system so that they end up saddling students with worthless degrees and a mound of debt. And then to pay off that debt many of those students become, yes, banksters and vampires. The implication seems to be that the securities industry is bankrupting American families just so it can force its children into indentured servitude as investment bankers.