Michael Lewis's new book, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, sounds fascinating---and important.
Brad Pitt bought the movie rights, so it's clearly got an interesting story to tell.
Michael Lewis tells the story of the folks who first figured out that the financial disaster was coming (the one that caused our current Great Recession). Lewis shows how these oddball stock traders figured out how Wall Street was making huge mistakes---when no one else could see it coming.
The following two interviews are must reading if you want to know how we got into the economic mess we are in. They're also riveting storytelling for the most part.
Learning professionals should listen to the interviews---and read the book too---for two themes: (1) How do people's mental models make it hard for them to understand the changing landscape, (2) How attempts at persuasion often fail in the face of these mental models. You might also find it fun to consider how you would "train" the citizenry to have a better understanding of how its government and Wall Street tycoons failed, how financial markets work, etc. Finally, note how Michael Lewis (and the interviewers) set up the dialogue to make a very difficult topic understandable. Great stuff!!
Interview with Terry Gross of Fresh Aire
About 40 minutes.
Interview with All Things Considered
About 9 minutes.
The April Vanity Fair also has a long excerpt from the book, on Michael Burry the medical-resident-turned-investor. Fascinating.
Posted by: Liz Ditz | Friday, 19 March 2010 at 02:05 PM
Michael Lewis! you are hundred percent true about financial crisis around the world. A big example in front of us is Dubai. Dubai economy was very strong in 2006 or 2007 but after this recession Dubai is totally in fix, particularly investors.
Posted by: Dubai Properties | Friday, 22 April 2011 at 03:55 AM
Michael Lewis is indeed wise. I agree with everything he has stated here. Once the meltdown occurred I began studying the murky world of CDO's, CDS's, and risk rating models.
Posted by: Cindy Margott | Wednesday, 08 June 2011 at 09:01 AM
Well these oddball stock traders figured out how Wall Street was making huge mistakes when no one else could see it coming..
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Michael Lewis tells the story of the folks who first figured out that the financial disaster was coming (the one that caused our current Great Recession). Lewis shows how these oddball stock traders figured out how Wall Street was making huge mistakes---when no one else could see it coming.
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The following two interviews are must reading if you want to know how we got into the economic mess we are in. They're also riveting storytelling for the most part.
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How attempts at persuasion often fail in the face of these mental models. You might also find it fun to consider how you would "train" the citizenry to have a better understanding of how its government and Wall Street tycoons failed, how financial markets work, etc.
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A big example in front of us is Dubai. Dubai economy was very strong in 2006 or 2007 but after this recession Dubai is totally in fix, particularly investors
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This post matter is quite in my interest!The root of the financial crisis, according to Lewis, is the entire notion of the financial economy having a separate life from a productive economy..thanks for the post.
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Learning professionals should listen to the interviews---and read the book too---for themes is really helpful in each and every field.
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I liked your point regarding attempts at persuasion often fail in the face of these mental models. to have a better understanding of how its government and Wall Street tycoons failed, how financial markets work, etc.
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This deals with the big question about how we can educate the general populous about how the financial system works and how quickly things can go wrong.
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for his many years in leading the workplace learning-
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