About book The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story Of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street And Made Financial History (2009)
Zuckerman does a good job of taking a modern history lesson and turning into an interesting narrative. While the book could use some trimming due to some scenes that do not really drive the plot anywhere and therefore unnecessary, i suspect they are there to illustrate the level of research the author conducted in order to weave an accurate yet entertaining story. This is another book I would not have read if it had not been assigned to me, yet I found it engaging and entertaining providing pertinent information of the mortgage crisis of the late 2000s without seeming dry and hard to follow. I'm very glad I took the extra effort required to finish this book! I have a much, much better understanding of the subprime market, 2007/2008 market & mortgage collapse, etc. I'm surprised that I hadn't heard this perspective on all the news docs I followed. Please realize that I have little financial training, but I do know numbers. Two things had troubled me about the collapse: --I saw it coming, why didn't others?--Why hadn't anyone done anything about it?Now, I see that many financial types did indeed see it coming. The new-to-me part is that seeing it coming, those financial types set out to find ways to make money from mortgage failures from within that very same system. In essence, many brokers were betting against their own colleagues & companies. Those bets coming due actually contributed to the bank problems. This is overly simplistic. Many did try to do something about the whole thing, but it became clear that even financial types just didn't know numbers. And, they hadn't listened to that tag line about past performance is no guarantee of future.... And, of course, there's the whole thing about why none of the legislation of the mid 2000s to regulate could pass through congress....Bottom line: This is thorough but not overly technical about the whole thing. I recommend it highly.
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Bubbles tend to burst. Secondhand people will go down. Think independently.
—jim
