Everything you need to know about the current economic crash, all in one place.
For starters read “Liar’s Poker” by Michael Lewis. The tag line is “Two Cities, True Greed” and in it he tracks the rise of Salomon Brothers, the investment bank that invented and popularised the securitisation of home owners mortgages. These are the financial tools that we used to create the subprime crisis.
Need take a look at “When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long Term Capital Management“. Which documents how the LTCM hedge nearly brought about the collapse of the investment banking system in 1998. Interesting fact, the top Salomon trader in Liar’s Poker is John Meriwether, who went on to found Long Term Capital Management.
Now for a lickety split overview of the current sub prime crisis watch this.
Then for a deeper understanding of how banks make money out of nothing. This one is long, but worth. You’ll never look at a bank again without thinking about the term “fiat currency”.
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-9050474362583451279&hl=en&fs=true
Finally to wrap it all up with a bow, read Michael Lewis’s article on Portfolio.com, “The End of Wall Street’s Boom“. In the interview he talks to an analyst who predicted the whole crash.
