“Take a typical three-hundred-million-dollar CMO. It would be divided into three tranches, or slices of a hundred million dollars each. Investors in… — 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
“Buy potatoes,” he said. “Gotta hop.” Then he hung up. Of course. A cloud of fallout would threaten European food and water… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
In Wall Street now, you have to hide what you're doing. It's more fun when you don't have to do that. But… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Back in July 2003, he’d written them a long essay on the causes and consequences of what he took to be a… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“For that purpose, partly as the result of Ranieri’s persistent lobbying, two new facilities had sprung up in the federal government alongside… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“He shouted into the phone, “That is fuckin’ awesome. I mean fuckin’ awesome. I fuckin’ mean fucking awesome. You are one Big… — 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
I didn't think one day something would happen that would bring me back to Wall Street to write what is essentially a… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“It was the job of people like me to make up reasons, to spin a plausible yarn. And it’s amazing what people… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
Wall Street, with its army of brokers, analysts, and advisers funneling trillions of dollars into mutual funds, hedge funds, and private equity… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Where to find the borrowers with high FICO scores? Here the Wall Street bond trading desks exploited another blind spot in the… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“But everyone wanted to be a Big Swinging Dick, even the women. Big Swinging Dickettes.” — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The Piranha didn’t talk like a person. He said things like “If you fuckin’ buy this bond in a fuckin’ trade, you’re… — 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
“The triple-A tranches all traded at one price, the triple-B tranches all traded at another, even though there were important differences from… — 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
“Ronan, for his part, couldn’t quite believe how ordinary the people on Wall Street were. “It’s a whole industry of bullshit,” he… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The new structure of the U.S. stock market had removed the big Wall Street banks from their historic, lucrative role as intermediary.… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Both had trouble generating conviction of their own but no trouble at all reacting to what they viewed as the false conviction… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“What Gutfreund said has become a legend at Salomon Brothers and a visceral part of its corporate identity. He said: “One hand,… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
The idea that it's smart to allow Wall Street firms, with this "too big to fail" imprimatur, to become hedge funds again… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
The CDO was, in effect, a credit laundering service for the residents of Lower Middle Class America. For Wall Street it was… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The markets in the long run are no doubt driven by fundamental economic laws—if the United States runs a persistent trade deficit,… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“By the middle of 2011, roughly 30 percent of all stock market trades occurred off the public exchanges, most of them in… — 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
