Customer Reviews

The seeds of the 2007 credit crunch
This is a fascinating book and doubly so for someone like me who thought that characters like Gordon Gekko (from the movie "Wall Street") are fictional. These people are real and really rich.

The book follows Michael as he starts on his career at an investment bank as a naive graduate with no experience of finance. One gets the feeling that the whole time he is working there is an extended out of body experience. He spends a lot of the time, it seems, being shocked by his brash American colleagues - he is British - and the other half wishing he could be like them, at least for a while. Particularly amusing is the tale of dinner at Buckingham palace, and particularly interesting/shocking is the profits that were made from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

The other half of the story is the story of the mortgage bond trading desk at Saloman Brothers, who in their attempts to create a new type of bond - backed by thousands of home mortgages resold as standard packages of debt - makes a ton of money and starts the headlong rush of leverage that the world has been paying for recently with the 2007 "credit crunch".

Of course, these people get their comeuppance, but let's remember that they all retired rich -- if not happy -- and this handful of people changed the way that banks issue mortgages in the whole world.

A great glimpse into a secretive world at an insane time.

great picture of certain events, at a certain time for all interested in investment banking and finance
Liar's Poker offers you a journey into the world of a sophisticated money-making machine: a global investment bank.

As an ex- Bankers Trust employee, I can claim I have met many people similar to the characters in the book, and I can say the characters, events, their habits appear very well pictured. Even though it is technical at times, this book is light years away from many boring books like "see how smart I was making my fortune".

This book explains a lot about how money was made and lost during these times. It gives examples of strategies and market context. More importantly it also shows you of people's greed, fear and the consequences of that. It illustrates relations within junior and senior staff in a bank like this in a very honest way.

The most exciting thing about it is that the author keeps a distance to events, millions of profit, important people and institutions mentioned in the book. Few of people working inside such an institution can say that.
I have recommended Liar's Poker to some people, and it seems it has changed the way they see their jobs and careers. Finally, this book makes you think - that is what good books are about.

Not life changing...
The book charts the rather short career of Michael Lewis in Saloman Brothers. When you think of great works of art in ters of the selling game, you think Glengarry Glenross, Wall street, The boiler room... however this book would not come anywhere near to the enjoyability of these movies, and i have certainly read better biographies and better fiction stories. I suppose the intrigue of this book comes from the time period that Lewis worked at the company. The 80's and the demise of the Yuppie where people seemed to swim in money... this is not the case with Lewis, as was on a capped bonus scheme, which meant that the big bucks always eluded him.

It is an interesting story, however the jargon that is used gets in the way massively. It is much more a history on wall street banking than anything else. Literally the 'story of HIS life' could be summed up in three easy steps. 1) got job 2) made some deals 3) left job. There seems to be no real padding out or substatantial details on his expieriences and his job, and it comes out more like a fly on the wall.

This is not on the whole a bad thing, but certainly was no where near as interesting as i would have though it could have been. I was a little dissapointed with the book, however it is worth a read for anyone looking to learn a little more about the late 80's wall street bankers.