The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine - michael lewis - 2011

 


Well where to begin??? Shout out Scott as usual for the great recommendation. This is most likely going to make the new top 10 although I am not sure what it is going to replace.

Shout out to Michael Lewis. He must be a genius. He has written moneyball, the blind side, and a new book about sam bankman-fried called going infinite (and others). I should probably read them all. He studied at princeton and the london school of economics. He is a smart guy. I like his narration style. It is calm and he explains enough so you can understand. Very sadly, one of his daughters died in a car accident in 2021. 

He has been married three times (lol) and is an atheist (lol). I think his current wife is pretty (lol). jajaja

Anyways this book is medium long and is nonfiction. It is a bit technical. I am slightly above normal IQ and I had to read it quite slowly. It is a bit hard to determine exactly what a synthetic CDO is (apparently no one on wall street from 2004 to 2007 understood either jajajajaj). I did not realize the importance of the bond market until reading this book. I did not realize the crookedness and greed of Goldman Sachs (and the others) until reading this book. I did not realize the stupidity of government employees (well at least at the rating agencies at this time period, I mean no offense, and it is intelligence relative to the quants at Goldman who seem to be quite smart) until reading this book. I am outraged that the treasury bailed out the banks (especially citigroup). I knew they bailed them out, but I did not realize how it happened and how much money the banks received. This book gives a really really in depth look at how the financial system collapsed (or perhaps better stated as very nearly collapsed) in 2007-08. 

It explains how this collapse happened through the perspective of three shorts: michael burry at scion capital, steve eisman and team at frontpoint capital (owned by morgan stanley lol), and charlie ledly, jamie ma, and ben hockett from cornwall capital (my heroes). Michael Burry is a beast. He is my favorite character. I may put his poster up on my wall. He saw the collapse coming first (way back in 04 or 05) and bet against the market and stuck to his guns when everyone hated him (which is very very very hard to do). 

Anyways I am getting burned out on reading jajaja. Read this, page it!!! for sure and understand the financial collapse of 2007-08 brought on by the greed of wall street's investment banks (who did not really even understand their own trades somehow lol, if I understand correctly companies such as New Century who made no doc subprime loans are also to blame). 

And look to see if it lands in the new top ten which will be coming out soon (Scott has just returned from the west coast and should be able to give input this week).

One more funny thing from this book (there are some funny parts although on the whole the story is true and tragic): apparently the apple has gone from causing the downfall of humanity in the garden of Eden to being a daily medicine (an apple a day keeps the doctor away, although I will have to revisit my bible because I am not really sure what fruit Eve persuades/tricks Adam into eating. Was it an apple??? Are apples fruits???) 

Comments

  1. Scott GogginsMarch 7, 2024 at 6:38 AM

    The dumbest part is when the guy sat next to the dude selling them at the japanese restaurant on the business trip and he thought he was conning everyone when he was actually the one getting conned but reaped all the benefit since he worked for the company. What a rats nest

    ReplyDelete
  2. BbowlingMarch 7, 2024 at 2:53 PM

    wing chau lol

    ReplyDelete

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