The book is fantastic because its central characters are a bunch of oddball, eccentric misfits who saw what no one else could. These guys (the 'good' guys in the book) made tons and tons of money even though they had not set out to do so - all they wanted was to uncover (discover?) the truth. And all of them paid a big price for their success. The book also looks at the guys on the other side - equally smart guys who were 'long' (ie they were buying when the good guys were selling). One notable dude is a Morgan Stanley trader, who was right, but not right enough, and who ended up losing $9 BILLION in a single trade. And in the center of the mayhem, touching all the characters, good or bad, was a particular trader from Deutsche Bank.
All the guys, the guys who were right as well as the guys who were wrong, made lots of money personally from the momentous events that unfolded. In doing so, some institutions were bankrupted, a few million livelihoods lost, a generation's lifelong savings evaporated and a few fortunes made.
The book raises very important questions - for one, what are we doing today about a system where all gain is private but all loss is public? The answer, unfortunately, is that we are not doing anything. The American financial system (and by corollary, the world) is hostage to what benefits Wall Street (and in particular Goldman Sachs). And secondly, is money really worth more than a few pieces of paper? Michael Lewis, the guy who saw the big picture, and quit Wall Street to fulfil a higher calling, is absolutely the right guy to answer this question. The answer is not surprising, but its quite weird how none of us ever seem to grasp it in our own lives.
However, enough of the moralizing! The book reads like fiction, is a page-turner and is a definite must-read!
2 comments:
Will have to read this some time then. Michael Lewis on the crisis would be gold.
Have you read Ascent of Money? Iwas planning to embark on it.
Yup, have read the Ascent of Money. Frankly, a bit underwhelming - reads more like history than anything else. Written like a TV script, so better to just watch the TV serier, IMHO.
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