Nov
29
2008
He thought the cause of the financial crisis was “simple. Greed on both sides—greed of investors and the greed of the bankers.” I thought it was more complicated. Greed on Wall Street was a given—almost an obligation. The problem was the system of incentives that channeled the greed.
Found in the December 2008 portfolio magazine (ht Robbie Allan).
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2008/11/29/quote-12-michael-lewis-on-incentives-in-wall-street/
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3 comments
John says:
December 2, 2008 at 10:03 pm (UTC 12 )
I like the bit where they get a chemical engineer with an MBA to try and figure out the CDO’s(?) and he can’t make head or tail of them.
Matt Nolan says:
December 8, 2008 at 10:32 am (UTC 12 )
“I like the bit where they get a chemical engineer with an MBA to try and figure out the CDO’s(?) and he can’t make head or tail of them.”
Indeed – that was a winner
John says:
December 17, 2008 at 4:32 am (UTC 12 )
Opinion: An open letter to Bernard Hickey on de-leveraging
“I cover this within a recent article Scoop: Housing Bubbles: Learning To Grow Up, where I draw readers attention to a very perceptive article by Michael Lewis on Portfolio Com The End of Wall Street’s Boom – National Business News – Portfolio.com – which should be read very closely. Note – it was the guys in the finance sector (and very few of them) who realized that housing markets that exceeded three times household income was THE major problem – and they wisely took steps to protect – and indeed profit – from this.”
http://www.interest.co.nz/ratesblog/index.php/2008/12/15/opinion-an-open-letter-to-bernard-hickey-on-de-leveraging/
Do you see the rationale in Hugh Pavletich’s take on this article (cause/ effect) Matt?