The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

by Michael Lewis
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

by Michael Lewis

Hardcover

$29.95 
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Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780393072235
Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date: 03/15/2010
Pages: 266
Sales rank: 133,008
Product dimensions: 6.20(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Michael Lewis is the best-selling author of Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, The Blind Side, The Big Short, The Undoing Project, and The Fifth Risk. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his family.

Date of Birth:

October 15, 1960

Place of Birth:

New Orleans, LA

Education:

Princeton University, B.A. in Art History, 1982; London School of Economics, 1985

Table of Contents

Prologue Poltergeist xiii

Chapter 1 A Secret Origin Story 1

Chapter 2 In the Land of the Blind 26

Chapter 3 "How Can a Guy Who Can't Speak English Lie?" 61

Chapter 4 How to Harvest a Migrant Worker 85

Chapter 5 Accidental Capitalists 104

Chapter 6 Spider-Man at The Venetian 136

Chapter 7 The Great Treasure Hunt 160

Chapter 8 The Long Quiet 179

Chapter 9 A Death of Interest 200

Chapter 10 Two Men in a Boat 226

Epilogue Everything Is Correlated 253

Afterword 265

Acknowledgments 269

Index 271

What People are Saying About This

Dick Durbin

I’ve joined a lot of other people in just finishing Michael Lewis’s book, The Big Short, and it’s really an eye-opener of what was going on at the time that this real estate bubble was created.

Carl Levin

I read it, marked it up for my staff, underlined it, made copies and asked them to read it.

Harry Reid

I recommend everyone within the sound of my voice to read [this] book.

Jackie Speier

[A]n incredible piece of commentary on Wall Street.

Byron Dorgan

If you’re wondering if there’s importance or an urgency to this issue, read the book The Big Short by Michael Lewis, and then, when you’re finished reading, come back to the floor and say that you support this amendment [on financial reform].

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