Book thread

[pioneer98]

Only a savvy few investors understood just how crappy the mortgages in these bonds and CDOs were, and shorted them. They made billions. Everyone else lost their ass when....

The Big Short does give all that background info on how those complex trades worked...but the majority of the book is made up of the stories of those handful of people, how they figured out the whole thing was a house of cards, and what they went through leading up to it, and finally what happened to them when it all fell apart. Of course, they hit it big, but the way they got there was pretty fascinating and absurd at times.

[Vidor]

I turned 16 in 1989, so I'm just old enough to remember this year well. This is a deeply fascinating book. Maybe the best chapter so far (I'm not finished) is the one about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Turns out that many people in the Soviet government understood why intervening in Afghanistan was a horrible idea--the possibility of quagmire, the possibility of limited resources being strained, the enormous public relations hit they'd take--but then Iran had its revolution in 1979 and the Soviets watched our embassy get overrun and they started getting twitchy about letting another Islamic revolution take place on their borders.

Does make you wonder about the road not taken. If we don't try so hard to support the mujahideen, are two skyscrapers still standing in lower Manhattan? And isn't Islamic fundamentalism worse than communism anyway?

[Swirls]

I turned 16 in 1989, so I'm just old enough to remember this year well. This is a deeply fascinating book. Maybe the best chapter so far (I'm not finished) is the one about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Turns out that many people in the Soviet government understood why intervening in Afghanistan was a horrible idea--the possibility of quagmire, the possibility of limited resources being strained, the enormous public relations hit they'd take--but then Iran had its revolution in 1979 and the Soviets watched our embassy get overrun and they started getting twitchy about letting another Islamic revolution take place on their borders.

Does make you wonder about the road not taken. If we don't try so hard to support the mujahideen, are two skyscrapers still standing in lower Manhattan? And isn't Islamic fundamentalism worse than communism anyway?

Vidor, I'd recommend you play this board game then. 1989: Dawn of Freedom

[lukethedrifter]

Thinking about reading Peter Matthiessen's Shadow Country. Interesting story about the book, it's a rewrite of a trilogy he wrote in the 90s. Not sure that I've ever heard of an artist of any sort revisiting/rewriting a prior work. Read the original three back then.

[MrSaigon]

I found Nate Silver's book just occasionally interesting. I feel like he's probably more sound than Gladwell (who I find questionably conclusive at times) and Lewis (who I can't help but wonder is taking liberties--everyone in baseball and Wall Street can't be that interesting), but his story-telling is a really big step back. I'll read everything written by those two, but I doubt I'll read another Silver book. I'd suggest just reading the baseball, poker, election and maybe Pearl Harbor--9/11 sections.

Only a savvy few investors understood just how crappy the mortgages in these bonds and CDOs were, and shorted them. They made billions. Everyone else lost their ass when....

The Big Short does give all that background info on how those complex trades worked...but the majority of the book is made up of the stories of those handful of people, how they figured out the whole thing was a house of cards, and what they went through leading up to it, and finally what happened to them when it all fell apart. Of course, they hit it big, but the way they got there was pretty fascinating and absurd at times.

The lesson I took away from this and elsewhere (http://www.economist.com/node/302764) was slightly different. Lots of people saw the precariousness of the situation. Lewis highlights some of the much smaller number of people who were bold enough to invest in the precariousness. I'll never be that bold, and Silver seems pretty supportive of my attitude there. It also makes me a little squeamish to think that American taxpayers had to bear the weight of the billions those guys made. But Lewis is great. He has an incredible gift for characterization. I thought that book was great.

[sighyoung]

This book evidently blows men's heads off. Or maybe it's about men's blown heads.

[ghostrunner]

Somebody couldn't decide between Rita Hayworth and Jayne Mansfield.

[Vidor]

What is that? Some old porn novel that you found?

[Vidor]

George H.W. Bush is not coming off well. I just got to the part where an ultra-cautious Bush is going around Eastern Europe praising various Communist leaders and pissing Lech Walesa and other anti-Communists off.

[robbotis]

Anyone read "The Passage" by Justin Cronin?
I'm about 200 pages(of like 800) in and am digging it. But I hear it tails off. My library loan just ended and there's like 90 people on the wait list, so I need to know whether it's worth the $8 to buy it to finish!