Long on 'The Big Short' ... and what it may teach us about our political system
I'm finally getting around to reading Michael Lewis's The Big Short. My impression? Damn! Why didn't I know this before?
Well, I did ... sort of. I knew about CDOs, CDSs, derivatives, tranches and much that other stuff that swirls around with those now infamous terms. I had read Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big to Fail as well as numerous articles on the Wall Street — and thus the world financial system — meltdown in 2008, but Lewis's book has been truly enlightening.
What's really phenomenal — and scary — is how major players on Wall Street and in the U.S. government knew so little about what was going on. And we trusted these guys?
Perhaps a similar failure today is how much we trust the major players in our political system to do what's right for the country. Here in Minnesota at the local level we can keep tabs on the decision makers because we can track them down, meet them face-to-face, or call them on their cell phones. But as decision makers move further and further away from everyday people, it becomes impossible to look them in the eye and ask, "How the heck can you say that?" or "What the hell are you doing?"
Unfortunately, when the power brokers governing states and the federal government speak and act, suddenly white becomes black, black becomes white, and everything else becomes shades of gray. Today's politicians (and many media pundits), like Wall Street bankers, don't care about the truth; all they care about is money ... and the next election.
A good book makes you think, and The Big Short does just that. Yet the book may not just be a story about Wall Street folly and stupidity; it may indeed become a parable for the same idiotic beliefs and lies that underpin much of our current political assumptions.
And that's really scary. — LP
Well, I did ... sort of. I knew about CDOs, CDSs, derivatives, tranches and much that other stuff that swirls around with those now infamous terms. I had read Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big to Fail as well as numerous articles on the Wall Street — and thus the world financial system — meltdown in 2008, but Lewis's book has been truly enlightening.
What's really phenomenal — and scary — is how major players on Wall Street and in the U.S. government knew so little about what was going on. And we trusted these guys?
Perhaps a similar failure today is how much we trust the major players in our political system to do what's right for the country. Here in Minnesota at the local level we can keep tabs on the decision makers because we can track them down, meet them face-to-face, or call them on their cell phones. But as decision makers move further and further away from everyday people, it becomes impossible to look them in the eye and ask, "How the heck can you say that?" or "What the hell are you doing?"
Unfortunately, when the power brokers governing states and the federal government speak and act, suddenly white becomes black, black becomes white, and everything else becomes shades of gray. Today's politicians (and many media pundits), like Wall Street bankers, don't care about the truth; all they care about is money ... and the next election.
A good book makes you think, and The Big Short does just that. Yet the book may not just be a story about Wall Street folly and stupidity; it may indeed become a parable for the same idiotic beliefs and lies that underpin much of our current political assumptions.
And that's really scary. — LP
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