“No longer were the prices of ordinary mortgage bonds allowed to roam inefficiently, for they were now linked to the CMO market,… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The creation of the mortgage bond market, a decade earlier, had extended Wall Street into a place it had never before been:… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“This completed the curious reversal in roles that occurred in the early 1980s, when thrifts became traders and traders thrifts.” — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Many thrifts layered a billion dollars of brand-new loans on top of their existing, disastrous hundred million dollars of old loss-making loans,… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“These Ginnie Maes suck. They get longer [in maturity] when rates go up, and shorter when rates go down, and nobody wants… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“For though there was no chance of persuading a pension fund manager looking to make a longer-term loan to buy a Freddie… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Because the lenders sold many—though not all—of the loans they made to other investors, in the form of mortgage bonds, the industry… — 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
