“His willingness to throw open a window on the American financial world, and to show people what it has become, still takes… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“What are the odds that people will make smart decisions about money if they don’t need to make smart decisions—if they can… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“They had stumbled either upon a serious flaw in modern financial markets or into a great gambling run. Characteristically, they were not… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
I'd stumbled into a job at Salomon Brothers in 1985, and stumbled out, richer, in 1988, and even though I wrote a… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“On its surface, the booming market in side bets on subprime mortgage bonds seemed to be the financial equivalent of fantasy football:… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“I’d thought it strange, after the financial crisis, in which Goldman had played such an important role, that the only Goldman Sachs… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Corporate finance, which services the corporations and governments that borrow money, and that are known as “clients,” is, by comparison, a refined… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Years later he would say that when he'd decided to become a professional baseball player, it was the only time he'd done… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
The arrangement bore the same relation to actual finance as fantasy football bears to the NFL. — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“There is an ancient rule of financial life—if you owe the bank 5 million bucks, the bank owns you, but if you… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
The reason the Greeks don't pay taxes is they don't trust where their taxes are going, because they know these other Greeks… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
What are the odds that people will make smart decisions about money if they don't need to make smart decisions--if they can… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“When you’re a conservative Republican, you never think people are making money by ripping other people off,” he said. His mind was… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The initial promise of computer technology was to remove the intermediary from the financial market, or at least reduce the amount he… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The simple reason Goldman wasn’t making much of the big money now being made in the stock market was that the stock… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“In early 2013, one of the largest high-frequency traders, Virtu Financial, publicly boasted that in five and a half years of trading… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
The big Wall Street firms, seemingly so shrewd and self-interested, had somehow become the dumb money. The people who ran them did… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
They [some countries] borrowed money to go acquire things, Indian power plants and Danish newspapers and British soccer teams. And they did… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Dark pools were another rogue spawn of the new financial marketplace. Private stock exchanges, run by the big brokers, they were not… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The relationship between the people and their money in California is such that you can pluck almost any city at random and… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
People were paid lots of money to make stupid decisions, people in big banks, and when people are paid to be stupid… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
If you're the kind of kid who thinks that all that's important in life is making money, Wall Street is probably still… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
A vast industry of stockbrokers, financial planners, and investment advisers skims a fortune for themselves off the top in exchange for passing… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“When Steve Eisman stumbled into this new, rapidly growing industry of specialty finance, the mortgage bond was about to be put to… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Crucial decisions are made, today as thousands of years ago, in terms of the intuitive guesses and preferences of a few men in positions… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“You saw someone who reminded you of you, and then you looked for the reasons why you liked him. The” — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“At other places management says, ‘Well, gee, fellas, do we really want to bet the ranch on this deal?’ Lewie was not only willing… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“BILLY WOULD SAY later that his wife left him because she was unnerved by his intensity—that she could even see it in his hands… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The great thing about baseball players, from the point of view of personal hygiene, is how seldom they break a sweat.” — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
There was but one question he left unasked, and it vibrated between his lines: if gross miscalculations of a person's value could occur on… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The author refers to a player's affected nonchalance and comments he is, "too young to realize you are what you pretend to be.” — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
A banking system is an act of faith: it survives only for as long as people believe it will. — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
Some coaches believed they could judge a player's performance simply by watching it. In this they were deeply mistaken. The naked eye was an… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“No longer were the prices of ordinary mortgage bonds allowed to roam inefficiently, for they were now linked to the CMO market, in much… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The difference between Strauss and Ranieri?” says one trader still at Salomon. “That’s easy. Strauss wouldn’t stoop to use the men’s room on the… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The only inexplicable aspect of the process was that economic theory (which is, after all, what economics students were supposed to know) served almost… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image