The Big Short
Metadata
- Author: Michael Lewis
- ASIN: B004JXXKWY
- ISBN: 0141043539
- Reference: https://amazon.co.uk/dp/B004JXXKWY
- Kindle link
Highlights
The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him. — location: 57
Mobile homes were different from the wheel-less kind: Their value dropped, like cars’, the moment they left the store. — location: 332
The subprime mortgage market was generating half a trillion dollars’ worth of new loans a year, but the circle of people redistributing the risk that the entire market would collapse was tiny. — location: 1097
AIG Financial Products was created in 1987 by refugees — location: 1105
AIG is why it was possible. but why did aig think it was possible
When Mike Burry bought a credit default swap based on a Long Beach Savings subprime–backed bond, he enabled Goldman Sachs to create another bond identical to the original in every respect but one: There were no actual home loans or home buyers. Only the gains and losses from the side bet on the bonds were real. — location: 1204
but, then, an entire financial system was premised on their not knowing, and paying them for this talent. — location: 1367
Danny’s trading life was man versus man, but this felt more like man versus nature: The synthetic CDO had become a synthetic natural disaster. “Usually, you feel you have the ability to control your environment,” said Danny. “You’re good because you know what’s going on. Now it didn’t matter what I knew. Feel went out the window.” — location: 3466
Most of what I knew about the financial crisis I knew from the characters of my book. — location: 3830