Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street
Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage 0140143459

Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street
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Penguin USA

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978014014345

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What does it take to make it in the high-stress, ethically-questionable world of junk bond selling? Lewis's account of life from his tenure at Salomon Brothers provides a humorous and candid profile of 1980s cutthroat business. LIAR'S POKER airs all the bad laundry of this once powerful brokerage house as it slowly collapses under the weight of its own greed.
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Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street Specs:
Product NameLiar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street
ManufacturerPenguin USA
Product Number MPN0140143459
Retail Price $15.00
EAN-139780140143454
EAN-1409780140143454
UPC978014014345
Specifications 
TitleLiar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street
ISBN0140143459
Author(s)Michael Lewis
Release DateOctober, 1990, 1990-09-01, 1990-10-01
FormatPaperback
Num of Pages256, 249
Num. of Items1
EAN9780140143454
Dimensions7.7 x 4.9 x 0.8 in.
Weight0.5 lbs.
Deal first added on:20-January-2004

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Business United States Business / Economics / Finance Business & Economics Biography & Autobiography Investments & Securities - General Investments & Securities - Stocks Corporate & Business History - General Brokers Salomon Brothers Michael Lewis
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Latest 6 Reviews
Here is what people are saying about the Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street
5 Star Rating  "Wall Street in the '80's"2009-09-09
- Reviewed By User: A2215XXGUF40JU
While it has been some time since I read Liars Poker it still brings a smile to my face by bringing back fond memories. What has renewed my interest and motivated me to write more of a validation than a review of Liars Poker was my current reading of one of Michaels other books - The money Culture. Having spent 42 years in municipal finance with, 23 of those years as a municipal bond analyst/portfolio manager/investment director, at a major institution I can speak with some semblance of authority. You would have to say that at various points in my career I experienced some of what he talks about. He does a nice job of pointing out the nature of characters, some of who, use to prey on unsuspecting porfolio managers. While most of his referrences are related to the corporate fixed income side, Munis had their share of thugs, thieves, but mostly honest people that were there to help you in various ways. Among the thugs and thieves are firms that are, in some cases, no longer in business. Who ever reads this book should keep in mind that the author, in citing what occured during the '80's, was in fact laying the foundation for what was and is ocurring in the capital markets during these turbulant times. Whether he knew it or not is not of material importance.
 
4 Star Rating  "Hilarious"2009-09-07
- Reviewed By User: A197IE826EIWPI
Nutshell review - This is a very funny book. Lewis writes a great story but, more than this, it gives you a fantastic behind the scenes look at how some fund managers operate in the wild, wild west of financial markets. This a rough and tumble world where all too often the small investors get punished for the benefit of the big guns. Very funny, eye-opening and offers a glimpse into the ivory towers.

 
5 Star Rating  "I loved reading this book"2009-08-14
- Reviewed By User: A38IZVTPUJEP40
I found this book very good to read especially during the current financial crisis. Even though the author wrote it in the 80s, it shows the culture and business of investing. The author used to be a bond salesman in the New York and London offices of Salomon Brothers.

The description of the S&L crisis is in a way similar to the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008. The greed and obsession with money made both crises possible. After reading this book, I realized that no matter how much regulation we have, we will experience similar events. Yesterday, it was the S&L crisis, today it is the subprime mortgage crisis, and tomorrow the greedy minds of Wall Street will create something even more interesting that will have more devastating effects.

For those who are not familiar with the business of high finance, this book will be an eye-opener. It shows what traders, salesmen, and executives of Wall Street firms do every day to make money by taking huge risks with the hope of a payoff. I absolutely loved this book and highly recommend it.

- Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market
 
5 Star Rating  "Very entertaining"2009-08-02
- Reviewed By User: A2QA7AEHMMD7OC
This book is very entertaining and an easy, enjoyable read. The author shares his personal experiences in a very accessible way, providing a glimpse into the workings and atmosphere of the financial services industry of the 1980's. The author also has a good sense of humor and his descriptions of the some of the characters at Salomon are priceless. Finally, the book is quite well written, which is much appreciated. Highly recommended. Paul Gehrman, Author, Kaleidoscope
 
4 Star Rating  "The birth of mortgage bond trading"2009-07-19
- Reviewed By piers_cherryl
This book was written in 1989 by Michael Lewis after two years as a bond trader at Salomon Brothers. The book ranges over a numer of topics: his recruitment and training, Salomon's earlier rise to prominence in bond trading, and in particular its early dominance of mortgage bonds, the author's experience as a Big Swinging Dick in London, the rise of Drexel Burnham and junk bonds, the stock crash of 1987, and the author's subsequent departure from the bank.

Of particular interest today, two decades later, is the description of how Salomon created the first mortgage securities department on Wall Street, with Bob Dall and Lewie Ranieri selling Ginnie Maes. In 1979 a policy change by the Federal Reserve to fluctuate interest rates was accompanied by an explosion of debt and rapid growth in bond markets - and established players such as Salomons. Ironically, at first the mortgage market was hit badly by rising interest rates, but then two years later Congress passed a tax break for savings and loans that incented them en masse to securitize and sell their loans: the resulting flood into the market enabled a handful of Salomon mortgage traders to make $800 million in four years. The traders, however, were not individually compensated in line with their extraordinary profits, allowing them to be poached by Merril Lynch, First Boston, Shearson Lehman, Morgan Stanley, Prudential Bache and Drexel Burnham. The resulting competition reduced the bank's profits, but so also did the spread of collateralized mortgage obligations (CMO) that blended pools of mortgage bonds from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, creating instruments that were more predicatable and better priced. CMOs were then tweaked in various ways to sidestep regulation, and in particular to allow thrifts to carry them "off-balance sheet". Eventually Ranieri was promoted away from mortgage securities and pushed out of the bank.

The remainder of the book is more biographical, with numerous anecdotes and comments on the culture at Salomon's that I found entertaining but perhaps not as insightful.
 
4 Star Rating  "Living the Lie"2009-06-30
- Reviewed By User: A3OMLBFTSG6QGH
This book is your primer to what happened to the US economy long after it was penned.

As a financier who worked amongst all of the moving parts herein defined, I can spell it out to you in simple terms: If loan becomes more valuable than its collateral, it's worthless.

Liar's Poker is now a period piece which unintentionally disected the groundwork for the disasterous bogus inflation of mortgage values, which pushed up home values, in the buildup to the 2008 crash.

The author seems to have been intent on just getting inside as an employee long enough to write the book, but he did manage to pull off more of an expose than I believe he even thought himself.

The history of the notorious invention of "traunching" mortgage risk, by Solomon Bros in the 1980's, was later unleashed to its full capacity for destruction by the elimnation of related regulation and monopoly regulations in the 2000's. In hindsight, it's rediculously obvious.

On a dive boat with one of the employees of the the primary character in 1998, he told me they were 'knocking it out of the park' by making mortgages to 125% of value. That's when I got out.

A great read, written with great humor, this book is an educational classic I recommend all the time.
 
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