The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine [Hardcover]

When the crash of the U. S. stock market became public knowledge in the fall of 2008, it was already old news. The real crash, the silent crash, had taken place over the previous year, in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesnt shine, and the SEC doesnt dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower- and middle-class Americans who cant pay their debts. The smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope and fear; in any case, they werent talking.No one writes with more narrative panache about money and finance than Mr. Lewis....[he] does a nimble job of using his subjects stories to explicate the greed, idiocies and hypocrisies of a system notably lacking in grown-up supervision....Writing in faintly Tom Wolfe-ian prose, Mr. Lewis does a colorful job of introducing the lay reader to the Darwinian world of the bond market.Superb: Michael Lewis doing what he does best, illuminating the idiocy, madness and greed of modern finance. . . . Lewis achieves what I previously imagined impossible: He makes subprime sexy all over again.One of the best business books of the past two decades.I read Lewis for the same reasons I watch Tiger Woods. Ill never play like that. But its good to be reminded every now and again what genius looks like.I recommend everyone within the sound of my voice to read [this] book.Ive joined a lot of other people in just finishing Michael Lewiss book,I read it, marked it up for my staff, underlined it, made copies and asked them to read it.[A]n incredible piece of commentary on Wall Street.If youre wondering if theres importance or an urgency to this issue, read the bookThe #1