The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

While definitely not laugh-out-loud like the great movie, this original non-fiction about the housing bond bust of '08 certainly makes up for it with lots of extra detail and explanation.

I'll just put this out there: nobody needs extra drama or characterization when the core, unbelievable immensity of assholery in the Stocks and Bonds market is enough to get millions of people boiling with rage.

That is, if they understand what happened, why it happened, and why it was never resolved. Why it's STILL an ongoing problem that just gets bigger and bigger with every passing year. Why it is very likely the very reason why housing prices have done nothing but rise and lock several generations out of ever owning a home now.

Is it a complicated issue? Not really. It's just clothed in stupid, obscuring language. Should it have landed a ton of people behind bars instead of getting golden parachutes? Absolutely. Should the market have corrected itself when it was merely bad instead of catastrophic? Absolutely.

And yet, this tale of the few shorters betting against the fraudulent housing market only got rich. In a sane society, the whole house of cards should have collapsed and been replaced with real regulations and watchdogs. Instead, we collectively just kicked the can.

Is this related to our current massive inflation cycle?

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Anyway, it's a FANTASTIC book.

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