The Big Short

Inside the Doomsday Machine

By: Michael Lewis

Narrated by: Jesse Boggs

Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

Featuring an exclusive audio interview with Michael Lewis

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 number-one best-selling Liar’s Poker. "Who got it right?" he asks. Who saw the ever-rising 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 best sellers, proving yet again that he is the finest and funniest chronicler of our times.

©2010 Michael Lewis (P)2010 Simon & Schuster

Critic reviews

“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.” (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times)

“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.” (Andrew Leonard, Salon.com)

"[Michael Lewis] is the finest storyteller of our generation.” (Malcolm Gladwell)

Greed is Not Good!!!

great view into the charachters ,
their mindset, motives ,and the institutions that created the Sub Prime bond market and subsequent global financial crisis.

I loved this!

I’ve seen the movie at least 4 times so when I found this I immediately added it to my wish list. I enjoyed more then the movie. What a story. It’s hard to comprehend that this really happened.

Don't watch the movie

Listen to the Audiobook. I listened first and then watched the movie, the second part I regretted.

Some great detail in here for someone with a background in business or finance, but the detail is not entirely necessary for the story.

Fascinating, clearly written, and engaging.

Michael Lewis does a wonderful job of making a complicated story engaging. This is the story of how the subprime mortgage market nearly brought the world financial system down. Mr. Lewis' breaks down the financial topics into easily digestible bits and weaves in interesting personal stories of those people to identified the opportunity & risks.

wow

finally some understanding of what happened and how people profited. Nicely written without too much unexplained financial jargon

How Wall Street did us

A very comprehensive but understandable narrative about Wall Street's catastrophic investment in "subprime mortgages" (i.e., home loans to people who couldn't pay them back) leading to the economic meltdown of 2008. It's a bit dry at times, but Lewis explains everything clearly and soon you'll be following along as he discusses Mezzanine CDOs and all the other arcane financial terms brokers and traders use to deceive (yes, deliberately deceive) investors.

Greed and deceit on Wall Street? Shocking! No, but really, the problem as Lewis explains it is not that Wall Street is greedy and dishonest but that most of the people on Wall Street don't actually know what they're doing. You'd think guys put in charge of handling billions of dollars would take the time to research their investments. Even if they don't care about screwing the public, they don't really want to bring down the entire economy. Yet that's exactly what they did, because they were lazy and ignorant. Even the CEOs.

If your understanding of the implosion of the housing market and the economy is kind of vague and you want to know the details, this is a very good book to start educating yourself with. Of course Lewis tells the story from his own viewpoint, and some of his opinions are not shared universally, so this isn't necessarily the definitive book on the subject.

He populates the book with an interesting cast of characters, not necessarily the biggest names in the catastrophe, but the little guys who made a killing seeing what the big investment banks didn't: that Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers were holding billions of dollars of bad paper. It almost makes you believe that you could make a killing on Wall Street if you were willing to put in the time and the study -- and if you were willing to hold on for a white-knuckle ride while everyone else is telling you you're about to lose your pants.

wow.

This book blew me away. The intertwined surreal stories of the people involved in the biggest fleecing of american taxpayers. The people in the know, and the people who should have been in the know, but failed us. In particular, the reaction of the SEC was most telling. I also found it shocking that the people who invented the equities were the same people involved with Milkin in the 80's. Criminals in suits, who carry out the biggest heist in history, and get away with it. Wall Street brokers, who after the entry of the internet era are no longer needed to buy stocks for customers, have turned to more sinister pursuits. One of the characters kept saying to his wife that this could be the end of democracy in the US. Maybe it ended a while ago and we just havent realized it yet, as the same people keep running these scams again and again. I am sure we havent seen the end of these people. I would have never understood what happened if Lewis hadnt written his book. All taxpayers need to read this book. I had to listen to it twice to catch all the nuances.

Wonderfully Told Story

Depressing, but well told. Makes you want to know more about where these people are now, even more than is told in the brief epilogue. And I would love to hear what Mr. Lewis recommends for how to avoid this in the future.

The movie or the book

We went to see the movie and much as we enjoyed it, apart from the language, it asked more questions than it answered. So we bought the book. It's a good "listen", engrossing and one that brings out the characters of the key players. Great attention to detail, and clear explanations when needed. Like Moneyball, you need to read the book to get the background. Something the movie makers don't have time for.

Awesome story. Interesting(and real) characters.

Michael Lewis made a bunch of confusing financial stuff that is crucial to the story easy to understand for the layman without dumbing it down. I would have never bothered to learn about collateralized debt obligations and the other complicated terms used in this story without listening to The Big Short.

If you choose to read (or listen to) this story, you will learn a lot about the 2007/2008 financial crisis while enjoying an engaging story.