The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine |
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| Title: | The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine |
| Author: | Michael Lewis |
| Publisher: | W. W. Norton & Company |
| Type: | Book / Hardcover |
| Publication Date: | 15 March, 2010 |
| ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0393072231 / 9780393072235 |
| List Price: | $27.95 |
| You Save: | $12.68 |
| Amazon Price: | $15.27 |
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This book is also available, brand-new, from 3rd-party marketplace sellers at Amazon.com, from $13.29.
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Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Product Description
The #1 New York Times bestseller: a brilliant account—character-rich and darkly humorous—of how the U.S. economy was driven over the cliff. 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 doesn’t shine, and the SEC doesn’t 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 can’t pay their debts. The smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope and fear; in any case, they weren’t talking.
The crucial question is this: Who understood the risk inherent in the assumption of ever-rising real estate prices, a risk compounded daily by the creation of those arcane, artificial securities loosely based on piles of doubtful mortgages? Michael Lewis turns the inquiry on its head to create a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his #1 best-selling Liar’s Poker. Who got it right? he asks. Who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become, and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception? And what qualities of character made those few persist when their peers and colleagues dismissed them as Chicken Littles? Out of this handful of unlikely—really unlikely—heroes, Lewis fashions a story as compelling and unusual as any of his earlier bestsellers, proving yet again that he is the finest and funniest chronicler of our times.
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Customer Reviews:
• Simple Crime
04 September, 2010
When mortgage lenders extorted the appraisers to keep jacking prices higher the banks and the rating agencies can't explain they didn't know their mortgage bonds were a huge bubble they created on purpose to continue making fees from borrowers they were suckering.
Not one review or Lewis clarify even the most simple of the crimes. The false AAA ratings are as obvious a crime as an attack with a baseball bat. The notion that the ratings were bought with fees is as simple as a crack deal on the corner. All the crap about complicated models made a fool of Lewis. My hunch is that Lewis knew it was a crime but refuses to make the allegation.
When the rating agencies testified under oath to Congress that their complicated mathematical models failed to work properly, they also committed perjury. These people can't be expected to testify we committed fraud, please arrest us. The rating companies can rate a single borrower like a corporation with a certified balance sheet, or a state with a visible budget. There is no way to rate millions of mortgages knowing that residential real estate prices are being forced higher by appraisers who are being extorted to either lie or to never get any more business.
Not one Congress person, the President, or the Attorney General ever contended the obvious, simple crime being committed to generate millions of foreclosures. The media pundits ordained the crime and even Michael Lewis skirts around the crime in his story THE BIG SHORT.
- Amazon Customer Review
• A Safe Bet
05 September, 2010
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
Michael Lewis's Liar's Poker provides an interesting and believable explanation for the Recession of 2009. Taking the perspective of a number of smaller hedge fund managers who saw through the smoke and mirrors of the mortgage crisis, Lewis explains in understandable language how we got into this mess. Readers will see how the actions of mortgage originators, banks, rating agencies and Wall Street all contributed to the debacle. Well worth the read.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Great Book
05 September, 2010
The Big Short is a fascinating look into the financial meltdown that caused the collapse of the world economy. It explains in a very understandable way what tanked the economy, as well as looking in depth at the people that caused it, their motivations, the crazy and corrupt system that made it possible, and a variety of individuals who were smart enough (or lucky enough) to predict the meltdown and made fortunes from it.
The book is fast paced and easy to read. It will in part make you want to get in on the action, make you disgusted at the greed and idiocy that lead to the market collapse, and wonder if the market will ever recover. And it will make you even madder about the executives of the large financial companies who make millions and millions in bonuses for essentially stealing the futures away from most people.
A great read. It is one of those current economic event books you will not be able to put down.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Great Book
05 September, 2010
This book gives great insight into the financial meltdown told through the experience of a few people who saw it coming. Lets you know that greed and ignorance is alive and well in the financial market place.
- Amazon Customer Review
• The Big Short By Michael Lewis
03 September, 2010
Well written in an historical, but enttertaining manner. Gets to the truth about what was really going on to cause the financial crash. A must reading for anyone remotely interested in the subject area.
- Amazon Customer Review
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