The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

The politicians blamed the bankers, the bankers blamed the poor, the business people blamed everyone and we didn't know who to blame. At last a book that tells what happened and where it all went wrong, without the writer needing to play a political or buisness position.

Be warned though, after listening to this you'll find it mighty hard to accept the bilge that passes for business, political and accepted truths about what is the World's biggest financial disaster. Do yourself a favour and wise up to what's been going on. Start taking action to avoid getting sucked in to all this. This story won't be completely played out for another ten years - so it's going to influence you, your wealth and income and your well being. Read the book and get ready.

If you can get your head around complex wall street 'financial speak' such as synthetic CDO's and credit default swaps then this book is a revelation. Or at least it was for me; I thought the banks had been irresponsible now I know they are downright corrupt. The great irony is that they made these complex financial models to hide the risk but the models became so complex that they didn't understand them themselves.

I've worked a lot in financial regulation so I understood a lot about the events described already, but I still learned a few things from this. All the technical details are well explained and I think people without a financial background could understand a lot of it as well.

As for the story, it's well done. If I have a criticism, it's that it's a bit too black and white - Lewis's world is populated by two types of people - one group who are smart, hardworking and honest, and another who are stupid, shady and just out to make a quick buck. But I guess he exaggerated the characters a bit to make the story more engaging. And engaging it is. Would recommend to anyone interested in understanding what caused the crisis but not wanting to get bogged down in technical analyses

A dramatic story that leaves a normal person feeling very angry. The bad guys waltz off with millions and the good guys aren't exactly heroes either. Some details are a little hard to grasp for a layperson, but then again 99% of Wall Street insiders didn't quite understand the Ponzi scheme they were rolled up in either. An amazing tale of our times, well-told by an able story-teller.

Not sure whether to recommend this book or not. Yes its very interesting and thought provoking but be warned it will leave you feeling angry about the modern world and who run it, and question whether lessons have been learned. Why on earth has nobody from the banking sector been charged with fraud?

The narration is very american (and I don't just mean the acsent) but on the whole the story flows well and is easy to follow. Certain facts are repeated throughout but I quite liked this as it often reiterated an important point or reinforced something I had misunderstood. Overall I enjoyed this book - 4/5

If you need an insight into the gears and cogs of our financial system and why it virtually collapsed..then this is for you. It opened my eyes on a world otherwise not known to me...and although I only have an interest in the topic I felt it gave me an insight from a genuine professional who had been there and done that. It makes easy listening and although the topic can be heavy, the style is good and continuous. Excellent!!

This book is an inside view of the people and events which lead to the current recession from which we are all in some measure suffering. The author identifies some of the key players and their actions and motives which contributed to the disaster. Having himself been briefly a part of the machine which manages and trades financial products, he has a good insight into the mechanisms and players. He now earns a (not inconsiderable I would guess) crust as a financial journalist, so he has remained in touch with the world of money and banking and his accounts and insights are doubtless as reliable as anything else in this fast changing and kaleidoscopic world.



The author introduces the book himself, delivering a potted financial autobiography in the kind of East Coast preppy accent which you might expect from a graduate of Princeton and the London School of Economics. The book itself is read by Jesse Boggs, whose fruity tones put me in mind of a continuity announcer on a mid western classical music station. A bit too laid back and world weary to my mind for this type of material, but perfectly acceptable once you have got used to him.



The book does a good job of describing the weird world of high US high finance and some of its even weirder inhabitants. It even explains the fantastic fictions dreamed up in this world, and how they came to grief so spectacularly. I did understand the descriptions and explanations when I heard them, but they failed to survive in my brain. My fault probably.



As an easily assimilated account of recent history this does a good job. If you're curious, and would like to think you understand how we all came to such a pretty pass, then I would recommend it. Unsurprisingly it all seems to boil down to human greed, recklessness, and folly. An old story in snazzy new clothes driving a Ferrari.

Follows some of the key people, primarily running funds, who saw that the pre-crisis financial system was careering forward on essentially a perverse belief that a AAA rating meant something and that the housing market in the US was fine. Hits the right level: why there was a financial crisis, what the characters involved in it were like, those people who put their money where their mouths were and bet against it... the incomprehensibly vast sums of money lost, even just by individuals. Really well read too.

Fascinating insight into the U.S. financial collapse of 2008, which helps in understanding the European financial collapse also. The author does a good job of making a very technical subject accessible, and tells the story through some key personalities on and around Wall Street. If you think 'bank' is a dirty word these days, this book will confirm your view. Most enjoyable.

Anyone who wants to understand the roots of the sub-prime crisis, which has plunged the world in recession for the past 5 years, should definitely get this book. Michael Lewis explains in easily comprehensible terms the concepts and reasons behind the splitting of mortgage loans into various floors and how this dissociation of the loans from the assets led to ever more abstract constructions which finally sent the world into chaos in the summer of 2008. A must read if you want to know why, and how, we got into the mess we are in nowadays.