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The Idea That It's Smart To Allow Wall Street Firms, With This "too Big To Fail" Imprimatur, To Become Hedge Funds Again - It's Unconscionable. You're Essentially Saying We're Going To Take Some Elites In Our Society And Let Them Roll The Bones In The Marketplace, And If It Works Out They Get Rich, And If It Doesn't Work Out The Taxpayer Comes In Again. That Seems Absolutely Crazy To Me. That Seems To Be Where They're Headed. I Mean, Maybe They're Not And I'm Wrong. Maybe They'll Do Sensible Things. It's Hard To Know! There Doesn't Seem To Be A Plan.

-Michael Lewis

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The Idea That It's

Michael Lewis

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The Idea That It's Smart To Allow Wall Street Firms, With This "too Big To Fail" Imprimatur, To Become Hedge Funds Again - It's Unconscionable. You're Essentially Saying We're Going To Take Some Elites In Our Society And Let Them Roll The Bones In The Marketplace, And If It Works Out They Get Rich, And If It Doesn't Work Out The Taxpayer Comes In Again. That Seems Absolutely Crazy To Me. That Seems To Be Where They're Headed. I Mean, Maybe They're Not And I'm Wrong. Maybe They'll Do Sensible Things. It's Hard To Know! There Doesn't Seem To Be A Plan.

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What Happens When We Acknowledge The Sovereignty And Power Of God Without Trusting In His Goodness And Faithfulness? A Pitcher Who Saw God's Power Behind His Extremely Unlikely Rise To The Big Leagues Wondered If, At Any Difficulty He Encountered There, God Might Be Taking His Ability Away.

At Sgi Board Meetings... Jim Clark's Face Would Get Red And He'd Start Shouting That An Investor And Board Member Had Cheated Him And His Engineers.

The Moulin Rouge Is, Like The West Village And The Nasdaq, One Of Those Places That People Who Don't Like To Take Risks Come To For The Thrill Of Being On The Spot Where Risks Once Were Taken.

You Want The Book To Be Special, And They Are Not Always Going To Be Special, But At Least You Want That To Be The Ambition. So The Only Way That Happens Is If You Are Not Pressing To Write A Book.

The Inability To Envision A Certain Kind Of Person Doing A Certain Kind Of Thing Because You've Never Seen Someone Who Looks Like Him Do It Before Is Not Just A Vice. It's A Luxury. What Begins As A Failure Of The Imagination Ends As A Market Inefficiency: When You Rule Out An Entire Class Of People From Doing A Job Simply By Their Appearance, You Are Less Likely To Find The Best Person For The Job.

You Could Argue The Banks Are Much Better Capitalised Than They Were Going Into The Crisis, And Everyone's In A Much More Vigilant State Because They Still Remember The Crisis.

What Are The Odds That People Will Make Smart Decisions About Money If They Don't Need To Make Smart Decisions--if They Can Get Rich Making Dumb Decisions? The Incentives On Wall Street Were All Wrong; They're Still All Wrong.

I Confess Some Part Of Me Thought, If Only I'd Stuck Around, This Is The Sort Of Catastrophe I Might Have Created.

They [some Countries] Borrowed Money To Go Acquire Things, Indian Power Plants And Danish Newspapers And British Soccer Teams. And They Did It Willy-nilly, And They Themselves A Story, That Icelandic History And Culture And Dna Leaves Us Very Well-suited To Being Investment Bankers.

There's No Point In Arguing With Partisan Supporters. Their Views Are Their Identity. Nothing You Can Tell The Most Phlegmatic Follower.

Warren Buffett Is Fond Of Saying That Any Player Unaware Of The Fool In The Market Probably Is The Fool In The Market.

Icelandic People Are Inbred. And They Have A Sense Of Themselves As Genetically Special, And A History Of Risk-taking Because They Make Their Living On The High Seas Fishing. Assets Generally Rose In Value During This Period, And So It Looked Like They Actually Knew What They Were Doing.

The Men On The Trading Floor May Not Have Been To School, But They Have Ph.d.’s In Man’s Ignorance.

A Credit Default Swap Was Confusing Mainly Because It Wasn't Really A Swap At All. It Was An Insurance Policy, Typically On A Corporate Bond, With Semiannual Premium Payments And A Fixed Term.

The Germans Made Just About Every Bad Investment You Could Have Made In The Last 10 Years. They Invested In Icelandic Banks. They Invested In Greek Government Bonds. They Were Heavy Into Irish Banks, Big Into Irish Banks, And They Bought U.s. Subprime Mortgage Bonds.

When You're Trying To Create A Career As A Writer, A Little Delusional Thinking Goes A Long Way.

I Think That Fans Are Always Looking For Someone To Blame. Wouldn't It Be Nice If They Looked In The Mirror?

There Used To Be This Guy Called Vinny Who Worked On The Floor Of The Stock Exchange, Said One Big Investor Who Had Observed The Market For A Long Time. After The Markets Closed Vinny Would Get Into His Cadillac And Drive Out To His Big House In Long Island. Now There Is The Guy Called Vladimir Who Gets Into His Jet And Flies To His Estate In Aspen For The Weekend. I Used To Worry A Little About Vinny. Now I Worry A Lot About Vladimir

I Was Gonna Put Him On The Bus...i Got Tired Of Him Talking, It Was Time For Him To Go Home.

If You’ve Got A Dozen Pitchers, You Need To Speak 12 Different Languages.

Don't Be Deceived By Life's Outcomes. Life's Outcomes, While Not Entirely Random, Have A Huge Amount Of Luck Baked Into Them.

The Incentives Are Still Rotten, And People Are Still Paid To Do Things They Shouldn't Be Doing. The Reforms Did Not Really Address The Incentives, The System Is Still Dysfunctional And There Are Still Behavioural Issues That Need To Be Addressed.

My Judgement Is Not Good When I Am On A Book Tour. I Am Not Thinking About It That Much. What Happens Is I Will Go Back Home. I Have A 4-year-old And A 1-year-old And A Wife Who Is Now Taking Care Of Them Who Is Wondering Where Her Husband Is.

Just Because You've Been Successful And Just Because You've Disrupted An Environment, Doesn't Mean You're A Role Model Or That You Actually Have Anything To Teach Anybody. There's An Awful Lot Of Luck And Accident In The World, And Maybe You Were Just On The Receiving End Of That.

Book Tours Are Almost Designed To Beat Out Of An Author Any Affection He Has For His Book.

It's Such A Pain In The Ass To Write A Book, I Can't Imagine Writing One If I'm Not Interested In The Subject.

The Big Wall Street Firms, Seemingly So Shrewd And Self-interested, Had Somehow Become The Dumb Money. The People Who Ran Them Did Not Understand Their Own Businesses, And Their Regulators Obviously Knew Even Less.

Yet Another Hedge Fund Manager Explained Icelandic Banking To Me This Way: You Have A Dog, And I Have A Cat. We Agree That Each Is Worth A Billion Dollars. You Sell Me The Dog For A Billion, And I Sell You The Cat For A Billion. Now We Are No Longer Pet Owners But Icelandic Banks, With A Billion Dollars In New Assets.

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