4 ms·

Michael Lewis is a great writer, but the closer you are to the subject the more his shortcomings are exposed. I felt the same way about The Big Short and to som

by JackFr 4y ago

Michael Lewis is a great writer, but the closer you are to the subject the more his shortcomings are exposed. I felt the same way about The Big Short and to some extent Liar’s Poker. He has an annoying tendency to assume that if he doesn’t understand something, either it’s completely inscrutable to everyone or simply BS. (And to pile on, The Blind Side was the touching story of how Lewis’s prep school classmate, an Ole Miss booster, gamed the system to provide improper benefits to a high school recruit.)

gadders 4y ago
Liar's Poker was autobiographical, though. He should have got that right :-)
FabHK 4y ago
While I agree that Flash Boys was below par, what's wrong with The Big Short? I thought that was well done, accessible, and largely accurate.
- JackFr 4y ago
  I think it's probably because I was there for it. His construction of the narrative, while better than many (including many straight journalists) ends up sort of falsely casting people into hero/fool/villain roles that make the book work as an entertainment, but don't fully hold up. It's a decent book, and a decent movie (kudos for one particular scene where I recognized data from the actual LoanPerformance database) I actually prefer the movie Margin Call for more accurately capturing the feel of the crisis from inside a bank.
  - adamsmith143 4y ago
    But wasn't the point of the Big Short to show the perspective of people "outside" the mainstream who made big bets against the system/banks? Not surprising then that it didn't really show what was happening in the banks themselves.
    - refulgentis 4y ago
      No, the book is very different from the movie, I'd say it's almost the opposite in that it was mostly narrated from the perspective of the banks. Another compounding factor is people often assume the message is "banks bad" but it's more "oh this system was so complex that any one individual did not understand the impact of their decision(s), much much more than everyone/anyone was playing super fast and loose from their particular perspective "
- mooreds 4y ago
  I liked The Big Short. On a different but related note, I also really enjoyed the Compleat Ubernerd, written by Tanta, all about mortgage servicing in the mid 2000s: https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2007/07/compleat-ubernerd.html https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2007/07/compleat-ubernerd... I'm not sure how it has aged (no Dodd-Frank updates, the author has passed away) but it was glorious in its time.
  - JackFr 4y ago
    Tanta was the ABSOLUTE BEST writing on the financial crisis as it was happening. You've made it when Federal Reserve Bank of NY cites your blog in a footnote in their research report. https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr318.pdf https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff... The CR blog was not the same after she passed away.
    - FabHK 4y ago
      Agreed, Calculated Risk was required reading at the time. So much insight. (On Tanta's passing: https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2008/11/sad-news-tanta-passes-away.html https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2008/11/sad-news-tanta-pa...)

by JackFr 4y ago

gadders 4y ago

Liar's Poker was autobiographical, though. He should have got that right :-)

FabHK 4y ago

While I agree that Flash Boys was below par, what's wrong with The Big Short? I thought that was well done, accessible, and largely accurate.

JackFr 4y ago
I think it's probably because I was there for it. His construction of the narrative, while better than many (including many straight journalists) ends up sort of falsely casting people into hero/fool/villain roles that make the book work as an entertainment, but don't fully hold up. It's a decent book, and a decent movie (kudos for one particular scene where I recognized data from the actual LoanPerformance database) I actually prefer the movie Margin Call for more accurately capturing the feel of the crisis from inside a bank.
- adamsmith143 4y ago
  But wasn't the point of the Big Short to show the perspective of people "outside" the mainstream who made big bets against the system/banks? Not surprising then that it didn't really show what was happening in the banks themselves.
  - refulgentis 4y ago
    No, the book is very different from the movie, I'd say it's almost the opposite in that it was mostly narrated from the perspective of the banks. Another compounding factor is people often assume the message is "banks bad" but it's more "oh this system was so complex that any one individual did not understand the impact of their decision(s), much much more than everyone/anyone was playing super fast and loose from their particular perspective "
mooreds 4y ago
I liked The Big Short. On a different but related note, I also really enjoyed the Compleat Ubernerd, written by Tanta, all about mortgage servicing in the mid 2000s: https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2007/07/compleat-ubernerd.html https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2007/07/compleat-ubernerd... I'm not sure how it has aged (no Dodd-Frank updates, the author has passed away) but it was glorious in its time.
- JackFr 4y ago
  Tanta was the ABSOLUTE BEST writing on the financial crisis as it was happening. You've made it when Federal Reserve Bank of NY cites your blog in a footnote in their research report. https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr318.pdf https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff... The CR blog was not the same after she passed away.
  - FabHK 4y ago
    Agreed, Calculated Risk was required reading at the time. So much insight. (On Tanta's passing: https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2008/11/sad-news-tanta-passes-away.html https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2008/11/sad-news-tanta-pa...)