just finished it ....

so in keeping with my current trend of letting anyone who accidentally stops by here know all my thoughts and feelings about my current consumption of movies, music, and sandwiches,  i want to talk about the book i just finished; michael lewis' 'the big short'.

most here would know that i was abroad from august 2006 to december 2008. lots happened that i missed out on, but nothing more impactful than the american economy, and as a result the global economy, slipping on its proverbial mortgage backed banana peel. it was fascinating watching the deterioration of wall street from my computer screen so far removed, so keenly aware of the significance, but so confused as to what the hell caused all this system to go from record profits to bankruptcy so quickly. looking for answers i turned to the new york times, the economist, and the financial times. these sources contained all the info that i needed, but it was not accessible to the laymen. then one of my favorite things in life, 'this american life' podcasts, presented a tutorial about the crisis featuring the folks from npr's 'planet money'. all of a sudden i was on top of the cdo market, credit default swaps, instantly i knew what deriviatives were, and tranches .... please, thats easy. (note: this is an over exaggeration. planet money just made it easier to understand what had happened and what people were talking about) having this explained to me by the best folks on radio started my desire to read more and more about this man made financial disaster........and thats what lead me to 'the big short'.

i have read lewis before, and if you havent you should. ive read 'liars poker' and 'moneyball', and i know most of you have heard of one of his football based books called 'the blind side'. having been exposed to lewis previously i knew i was in for a great story. he has away of weaving very vivid depictions and personal stories together to form a an elaborate pattern that the reader becomes enamored with and eventually addicted to. 'the big short' is no different.

in this book lewis, like a successful pediatrician, softly greats the child/reader, places him on a stool, asks a couple of questions, rolls up the childs/readers sleeve, cracks a joke, and bam plunges the needle into the unsuspecting arm of his patient/reader. lewis obviously isnt a pediatrician and he isnt giving injections of medicine, but his ability to deliver complicated information, timelines, and market fluctuation to the reader with out them being aware of this occurring is much like the savvy doctor who can successfully stick a needle into a kid without them knowing.

he achieves this by boiling the crisis into little personal vingettes about the people who were involved in the crisis, but were in the unique position of 'chicken little', only they are right. these stories allow lewis to show the reader how obscure, esoteric, and out of touch with reality the financial system had traveled. all of his stories were about guys outside of the wall street sphere (except the deutsche bank trader gregg lippman), which allowed lewis to stand extremely tall on his soap box and point out that everyone on wall street was either a.) the devil on earth who only feed on his/her own greed or b.) a retard. now surely some involved in the system fit those characteristics (and sometimes the same person fit both!), but lewis' attacks really get old after a while.

besides that one little draw back, i did enjoy the book. i learned a lot from it, and i would consider myself to be more informed that the average person on the subject matter, but if you have taken classes from jagdish bhagwati you probably know everything in this book minus the personal stories stitched together by lewis. but if you have read lewis before, you know what youre getting with 'the big short'; an informative and enjoyable read. if you havent read lewis before; read 'the big short', because it will be both informative and enjoyable....


**if you are in baltimore i will lend you this book if you want to read it ... email me**