The Big Short

That's the title of an excellent new book I'm reading (bought it for the airline flight back home from the premium auditor's convention). The Big Short is by author Michael Lewis, whose earlier works have included Liar's Poker and Moneyball.

The Big Short explains in painful detail exactly what went wrong on Wall Street and how institutionalized greed and an utter lack of ethics came close to destroying the world economy. It also finally explains in detail how AIG managed to destroy itself (well, save for the financial intervention of U.S. taxpayers).

This book should be required reading for everyone who is outraged over our current economic problems. The degree to which large Wall Street investment banks turned our financial system into a literal casino is shocking. So many people (who all thought they were the smartest people in the room) made ill-gotten fortunes by turning financial institutions into a gambling den and then deluded themselves into thinking they made honest livings.

How did that writer for Rolling Stone describe Goldman Sachs? Something about a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity? Read The Big Short, and you will realize it wasn't just Goldman Sachs.