Book Review: The Big Short

The Big Short
By Michael Lewis

****/5

The Doomsday Machine explained

If you have ever wondered about the American financial crisis and not found comprehensible answers in financial newspapers and magazines, then this book is for you. Michael has a confident and easily understandable writing in this latest non-fiction. He presents not just the big banks workings but gives us a personal introduction to the people behind it. He mentions a bunch of hedge fund operators who knew what tragedy was coming and invested wisely. The book takes us on the journey with insights from these hedge fund investors’ point of view. It at once puts us on the front seat of this CDO and credit swap machinery. It helps us understand the complicated mortgage disaster as seen by the eyes of visionary investors who knew the bubble was about to burst into disastrous proportions.

The characters in this book is what brings the book alive. It helps us know the business in Wall Street as analysed by these characters, what they do, why they did do something and how they profited during the biggest recent collapse in the financial market.

There is no better guide than this one with characters and explanations taking you inside the system and showing you what happened, why and how.

A good reason to drive under 60kmph

Thanking my lucky stars - got saved from a gruesome accident.

I was riding my Enfield Bullet at 7 am to go to the gym today. I was crossing the Airoli bridge to get to New Bombay which is where my gym was. Suddenly in the middle of the bridge my bike's rear starts fishtailing violently.......then the whole bike starts shaking violently. I tried to be gentle to control the motorcycle. Then I feared I may crash and started to go to the left corner of the road (in India we drive on the left) and applied the front brakes because I was sure the rear wheel had gone kaput.

I managed to stop without falling and indeed the rear wheel had gone flat. Luckily I was going only 60kmph in the fast empty morning bridge. If it was faster I surely would have crashed. Luckily also the rim of the rear wheel didn't get damaged. There was a thick long nail in the rear tyre.

Another important aspect of such situations is that even if you fall you might be okay but only if some trucker or bus doesn't run over you. The fact that I managed to get it to the left side of the road and slow down gradually was a small miracle. Sundays the hospitals don't have the regular staff and doctors and fewer people on the road early morning. I truly feel blessed rather than saying it was bad luck. Often enough its not the crash that kills but the large vehicle coming behind you which is not able to break suddenly and goes over you to make a gruesome accident.

So drive safe, drive upto 60kmph. The road is full of surprises. Thank God for small mercies.