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curtis.engineer · @curtis.engineer@bridge.neodb.net

Rated The Big Short: by Michael Lewis 8/10

I find that there are a lot of people who don’t really understand what happened during the Great Recession, and just rattle off keywords that they heard from their favorite news outlet. Regardless of what your political views are on bank regulation and “Too Big to Fail”, everyone should read this book.

This book is great for two very different reasons. One, it breaks down very complicated financial jargon to a level that most people can understand. Two, it is very entertaining. The book follows the path of a few different people who made a LOT of money from the greatest financial crisis of my lifetime. How did they do that? They literally placed bets against home owners in the United States.

I know what you’re thinking, these guys sound like unpatriotic businessmen who took advantage, but they are actually the heroes of this story. These guys saw that the banks were creating huge risks from giving customers incentives to take on debt they couldn’t necessarily afford. If all of this sounds boring to you, just wait until you hear some of Mark Baum’s outbursts (there will be f-bombs, you have been warned).

I put The Big Short in my “World View” section, because this was a substantial moment in time for a lot of people from several generations. This shaped my world view specifically because it pointed out to me that the financial industry may not have the best intentions at heart when they are approving loans, and quite frankly they might not even have sound business interests at heart. In all likelihood, the industry may be so hungry that at times it might even take a bite of itself.

If you are looking for more of a summary of the entire book, not just a review of the audio book, check out this summary I wrote in 2017 for a book club.

#book

Published 2026-08-27 16:25 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere