The Global Financial Crisis has been talked about for over 4 years now. In the last 2 years the crisis has apparently intensified especially in Europe. And in the last year we regularly read about Greece, Spain, Italy and other European countries.
I had tried to understand what exactly the problem was but was never able to. All of the articles I read attributed several complex theories and reasons and used financial terms that I was unable to understand.
Until I recently came across a book by Michael Lewis, "Boomerang". And I was able to undertsand what the global financial crisis was all about. I could understand in 1 day what I had been unable to fathom over 2 years and 100's of articles.
It’s a short book with just 5 chapters covering Iceland, Ireland, Germany, Greece, and California. What's interesting is that each country and its people behaved similarly, yet completely different. The similarity was that all of them took full advantage of a system that was willing to give money even when there was no credit worthiness or a reasonable ability to repay. The difference was how the money taken was used.
The New York Times review of the book makes for interesting reading: "Michael Lewis possesses the rare storyteller’s ability to make virtually any subject both lucid and compelling. In his new book, “Boomerang,” he actually makes topics like European sovereign debt, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank not only comprehensible but also fascinating"
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/books/boomerang-by-michael-lewis-review.html?pagewanted=all
You can watch an Interview with Michael Lewis' on Boomerang.
Telling a story is an art. Telling a complex financial story simply so that reular non finance background individuals can understand is probably impossible. But after Boomerang, I was convinced that Michale Lewsis had probably done this in his other books. And when I read 2 of them, I was not disappointed. It makes for interesting reading and I strongly recommend them.
Liar's Poker
"Liar's Poker is a non-fiction, semi-autobiographical book by Michael Lewis describing the author's experiences as a bond salesman on Wall Street during the late 1980s. First published in 1989, it is considered one of the books that defined Wall Street during the 1980s, along with Bryan Burrough and John Helyar's Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco, and the fictional The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe. The book captures an important period in the history of Wall Street. Two important figures in that history feature prominently in the text, the head of Salomon Brothers' mortgage department Lewis Ranieri and the firm's CEO John Gutfreund."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar%27s_Poker
The Big Short
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine is a 2010 non-fiction book by Michael Lewis about the build-up of the housing and credit bubble during the 2000s. It describes several of the key players in the creation of the credit default swap market that sought to bet against the collateralized debt obligation (CDO) bubble and thus ended up profiting from the financial crisis of 2007–2010. The book also highlights the eccentric nature of the type of person who bets against the market or goes against the grain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Short
I had tried to understand what exactly the problem was but was never able to. All of the articles I read attributed several complex theories and reasons and used financial terms that I was unable to understand.
Until I recently came across a book by Michael Lewis, "Boomerang". And I was able to undertsand what the global financial crisis was all about. I could understand in 1 day what I had been unable to fathom over 2 years and 100's of articles.
It’s a short book with just 5 chapters covering Iceland, Ireland, Germany, Greece, and California. What's interesting is that each country and its people behaved similarly, yet completely different. The similarity was that all of them took full advantage of a system that was willing to give money even when there was no credit worthiness or a reasonable ability to repay. The difference was how the money taken was used.
The New York Times review of the book makes for interesting reading: "Michael Lewis possesses the rare storyteller’s ability to make virtually any subject both lucid and compelling. In his new book, “Boomerang,” he actually makes topics like European sovereign debt, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank not only comprehensible but also fascinating"
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/books/boomerang-by-michael-lewis-review.html?pagewanted=all
You can watch an Interview with Michael Lewis' on Boomerang.
Telling a story is an art. Telling a complex financial story simply so that reular non finance background individuals can understand is probably impossible. But after Boomerang, I was convinced that Michale Lewsis had probably done this in his other books. And when I read 2 of them, I was not disappointed. It makes for interesting reading and I strongly recommend them.
"Liar's Poker is a non-fiction, semi-autobiographical book by Michael Lewis describing the author's experiences as a bond salesman on Wall Street during the late 1980s. First published in 1989, it is considered one of the books that defined Wall Street during the 1980s, along with Bryan Burrough and John Helyar's Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco, and the fictional The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe. The book captures an important period in the history of Wall Street. Two important figures in that history feature prominently in the text, the head of Salomon Brothers' mortgage department Lewis Ranieri and the firm's CEO John Gutfreund."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar%27s_Poker
The Big Short
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine is a 2010 non-fiction book by Michael Lewis about the build-up of the housing and credit bubble during the 2000s. It describes several of the key players in the creation of the credit default swap market that sought to bet against the collateralized debt obligation (CDO) bubble and thus ended up profiting from the financial crisis of 2007–2010. The book also highlights the eccentric nature of the type of person who bets against the market or goes against the grain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Short
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