Summary of The Big Short by Michael Lewis

     The Big Short by Michael Lewis is a description of the scandalous crisis' and banking failures of the stock market in 2008. Michael watches the events unfold as an inexperienced and mostly clueless member of business in the stock market. He takes part in a financial free-for-all as he foresees the inevitable. The subprime mortgage bond market that had been created in the 1990's began to form into a much more complicated debt monster. These packages were meant to support the hold system and create easier financial pathways; But these were not assessed or managed properly, leading to the largest economical disaster since the Depression of 1929.

     Despite the seemingly unpreventable doom, the players of Wall Street soon learned the game. Selling bonds to unknowing victims as safe bets when unbeknownst to them, they were investing in the money makers' traps. The big problem with the banks, etc in '08 and long before was their investment in subprime mortgages. He knew that, but what he didn't know is that one clever fellow took a whole mess of those mortgages, no one knows how many or from what source, bundled them up, called them Collateralized Debt Obligations and sold them on the bond market. In effect, they were betting on a recession and against the banks and their credit laundering services.