“The only inexplicable aspect of the process was that economic theory (which is, after all, what economics students were supposed to know)… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“I have this theory," says Andy Stone, seated in his office at Prudential-Bache Securities. "Wall Street makes its best producers into managers.… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The gist of Laszlo’s pitch for the equity department was this question: When you turn on your television at six-thirty and Dan… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“By early 2005 all the big Wall Street investment banks were deep into the subprime game. Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs,… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Long Beach Savings was the first existing bank to adopt what was called the “originate and sell” model. This proved such a… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“If you ever care to see how all the world’s most awful jokes spread, spend a day on a bond trading desk.… — 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
Wall Street is not being made a scapegoat for this crisis: they really did this. — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“There was more than one way to think about Mike Burry’s purchase of a billion dollars in credit default swaps. The first… — 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
The model used by Wall Street to price trillions of dollar's worth of derivatives thought of the financial world as an orderly,… — 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
“Before Volcker’s speech, bonds had been conservative investments, into which investors put their savings when they didn’t fancy a gamble in the… — 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
“How could anyone be so stupid as to trust a trader? The best thing I could do was pretend to others at… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
I was really interested in a pretty simple thing: what happens when someone tries to introduce moral considerations into Wall Street, what… — 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
“A credit default swap was confusing mainly because it wasn’t really a swap at all. It was an insurance policy, typically on… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
I thought instead of a good rule for survival on Wall Street: Never agree to anything proposed on someone else's boat or… — 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
“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
“On Wall Street, the lawyers play the same role as medics in war: They come in after the shooting is over to… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“A big Wall Street bank’s biggest advantage was its access to vast amounts of cheap risk capital and, with that, its ability… — 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
“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
