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Review
Michael Lewis possesses the rare storyteller s ability to make virtually any subject both lucid and compelling. In his new book, Boomerang, he actually makes topics like European sovereign debt, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank not only comprehensible but also fascinating The book could not be more timely given the worries about Europe s deepening debt crisis and the recent warning issued by Christine Lagarde, managing director of the I.M.F., that 'the current economic situation is entering a dangerous phase.'Combining his easy familiarity with finance and the talents of a travel writer, Mr. Lewis sets off in these pages to give the reader a guided tour through some of the disparate places hard hit by the fiscal tsunami of 2008, like Greece, Iceland and Ireland, tracing how very different people for very different reasons gorged on the cheap credit available in the prelude to that disaster. The book based on articles Mr. Lewis wrote for Vanity Fair magazine
Book Description
The tsunami of cheap credit that rolled across the planet between 2002 and 2008 was more than a simple financial phenomenon: it was temptation, offering entire societies the chance to reveal aspects of their characters they could not normally afford to indulge.Icelanders wanted to stop fishing and become investment bankers. The Greeks wanted to turn their country into a pinata stuffed with cash and allow as many citizens as possible to take a whack at it. The Germans wanted to be even more German; the Irish wanted to stop being Irish. Michael Lewis's investigation of bubbles beyond our shores is so brilliantly, sadly hilarious that it leads the American reader to a comfortable complacency: oh, those foolish foreigners. But when he turns a merciless eye on California and Washington, DC, we see that the narrative is a trap baited with humor, and we understand the reckoning that awaits the greatest and greediest of debtor nations.
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Most helpful customer reviews
40 of 41 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Amazing Story Regarding Financial Madness,
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This review is from: Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World (Hardcover)
Lewis decides to become a financial disaster tourist, and travels to various bankrupt European countries. He wants to find out at the ground level, what happened in; Iceland, Greece, and Ireland. Well Lewis collects the data he was looking for, and spins out quite the story.In a nutshell these countries get a hold of cheap foreign credit, and go into a wild financial mania. They also abandon all previous forms of prudent economic management. The details regarding the Greek economy, are beyond anything I have ever heard before. In fact, the Greek situation makes the former Tulip Mania and Dot Com Bubble, seem rather tame and orderly. The Greek debt problems have still not been fully resolved, so this makes the details all the more engaging. This is a small book, but the message delivers a big impact. The reader will be left with, a much better understanding of the current global financial dilemma. This book was hard to put down, and a very good read. Both general and financially interested readers, will be entertained and astonished.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Boomerang returns dividends on time invested,
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This review is from: Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World (Hardcover)
Bestselling author Michael Lewis delivers again with this series of themed travelogues about the financial crisis and originally published in Vanity Fair. Each of the articles stands well on its own, but in series they manage to bring an additional element, a much broader perspective on the financial crisis and on human nature.Lewis travels to the major hot-spots: Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Germany and the US, noting the similarities and the differences in each of their situations, but mostly letting the individual characters who populate his essays tell the stories. Descriptions of people are rich, humorous, playful and cutting, but never mean spirited - the kind of descriptions your friends might use at your roast. Descriptions of countries' national characters and of specific places are equally pithy; 'it's the sort of place bankers stay because they think it's where the artists stay.' As expected, bank leadership, politicians and regulators fare poorly in Lewis' crosshairs, and although they play small walk-on parts, investment banks such as Merrill Lynch come across as morally bankrupt and duplicitous, far worse than their aforementioned dimwitted but greedy co-conspirators. Lewis is finance literature's equivalent of television's Jon Stewart, calling all out on their motives, their revisionist explanations, and their mistakes. Ultimately, though, Lewis settles on the root cause - it's us; it's human nature and short term thinking. One of his interviewees sums it up best when he says about the virtual bankruptcy of his city, 'I think we've suffered from a series of mass delusions.' As much as Charles Kindleberger's excellent book Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises offers a deep retrospective of the evidence of our foibles, Boomerang offers finely drawn characters who give insight into the human behaviour that inevitably leads to the crashes. A much different perspective, much more enjoyable to read, but no less effective. (Margaret Atwood's Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth is an equally excellent and alternative take). As a former bond trader himself, Lewis has an easy grasp of the issues, the interests and the conflicts, and he segues from character to character and setting to setting to weave his story in the most entertaining and engaging of ways. These strengths set Lewis apart from most financial writers who concentrate on a chronological recounting of facts, with character development playing second fiddle. In all of the best ways in these short articles, Lewis is like Charles Dickens with a sketchbook rather than the vast canvas of a full length novel. You really should read this book. You will be entertained, you will learn something, and whatever your political or economic stripe, you will pause for some self reflection, because in the end the financial crisis boomerangs back to us and to human nature.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Michael tell it like it is. Simple easy to understand,
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This review is from: Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World (Hardcover)
Boomerang is a good sequel to The Big Short which covered the mortgage default debacle very well. We were left wondering as things continued and we never made it out of the depression. Boomerang explains what happened in Iceland, then Ireland, and now in Greece. He also explains how American consultants, the very same who were responsible for engineering mortgage default swaps were paid big bucks to 'advise' Ireland and Greece. Iceland did it on their own. He also explains why Germany is the way it is. It ends with examples from USA. Fasten your seat belts. It is not over! He tells us why things can't remain as they are or were. An excellent read. So timely as we watch the government of Greece tripping over themselves to build a trogen horse in an effort to get $$$ from Germany. The book is quick and easy to read. Michael is someone who can explain this in simple terms because he knows the subject well.
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