Customer Reviews

Liar's Poker

5 star:		(103)
4 star:		(37)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I picked up this book as it is highly popular among investment bankers. I am not an investment banker and do not intend to be one but I was keen to find out what makes Wall Street special. The book not only satisfied my curiosity but also was pleasantly amusing.

The author traces the glorious and gloomy times of Salomon Brothers, a big financial enterprise in which he worked long enough to be able to tell this tale and become a rich man. He explains some financial innovations of Salomon brother's in lay man's terms, which makes this book very readable for all.

The author's self-deprecating humor and his vivid analysis of the people he came across in his organization make the account entertaining.

Whether or not the author's opinions on technical matters in this book are meritorious-I am not qualified to say. If you are a finance novice and curious to find out about life in that universe, you will find this book worthwhile.

This is the author's coming of age story, set in the world of investment banking in the 1980s. As a growth and wisdom book, it's pretty good, but it's really a non-fiction version of Tom Wolf's Bonfire of the Vanities. Of course what makes it interesting is that Michael Lewis came of age by successfully trading bonds for Solomon Brothers.

Among other aspects of the firm, LP describes Solomon's Mortgage Bonds department, its influence over the savings and loans, and the effect of Fed Chairman Paul Volker's 1981 decision to let interest rates float. Lewis does a brilliant job of explaining how this lead to S&L's selling their mortgages in order to fund investments in higher yield securities.

Here's the catch: Liar's Poker appeared before the S&L debacle but it laid out all the signs needed to predict the disaster to come.

Much of the hand wringing over S&Ls in the early 90's could maybe have been avoided if the warnings given in this book had been acted upon. To be fair, the warnings are clear but they are implicit. Lewis never actually projects the current state of the S&L industry into the future, even if he does mention that the basic problem with mortgages (short term funding of long term loans) is not solved.

Good read.

Michael Lewis's ten-year-old account of his two-year stint as a bond salesman at Salomon Brothers has become a literary classic in the world of finance, and has probably stroked aspirations in more Wall Street-bound MBAs than any other book. I know many an individual who, after reading the book, become so enamored with the culture described therein that they take it upon themselves to act like the "human piranha" or any of the other clownish characters from the book.

Having worked on Wall Street in various client-facing capacities over the years, especially as a trader with a volatile fund, I feel the book is a bit over melodramatic and over-sensational. Are there such personas on Wall Street? Absolutley. In fact the real people on Wall Street -- the traders, the whiteshoe i-bankers, the jewish deal-makers and deal-breakers -- can be even meaner, nastier than Lewis describes. But the clownish characters he creates are probably more fiction than real. Still, his observation that most traders have huge egos and are among the most despicable human beings (despite their MBAs, Ph.D.s, or MDs) to ever walk on earth, is deadly accurate. The constant politicking is captured vividly by the author, although, again, his writing seems to border on fiction quite often.

Don't take me wrong; I think this is a must-read for anyone interested in how Wall Street breathes and works. Lewis does a fine job at exposing the disgusting nature of greed, the only thing that feeds Wall Street's daily existence.

Michael gives the reader an inside look at one firm on Wall St. The story is not new: greed, power, money. It never changes. This look from the 1980's does lay some of the ground work for what happened in 2008. Of course Michael would not have realized it when he wrote this book. You may have your opinions of how the Street opporates, this just confirms how one firm went about their daily activities from the view point of a rookie working his way into and up the success ladder at a major Wall Street Firm.
Easy read.

I highly recommend the audio version read by Michael Lewis.

This is the funniest book ever written about trading. It is autobiographical, yet captures the atmosphere and the personalities of the era. The 1980's and 1990's were crazy years and Michael Lewis manages to take a snapshot in time.

An absolute classic...

I love Michael Lewis books. Well researched, well written with a touch of humor. All his books are a must

Care for an insight into the world of greedy Wall Street Investment Bankers of the 1980s? If the answer is yes, then this is definitely the book for you.

Lewis makes the world of Wall Street come alive in hilarious absurdity in this classic. Wears its age well in 2011, even though the book has been around 20+ years. Some things don't change much - the props (i.e. the instruments involved) come and go, get more complicated, etc but the human nature and raw greed that drives much of what happens seems to be intact.

It is an enjoyable read. It should be no surprise to people who have read other books by Michael Lewis, that he tells a story with humor and is just a great storyteller in general. Poker's Liar is another one of those books. Though sometimes I get the impression that he goes over the top or exaggerates in the language he uses in this book. All in all I would still recommend it, though I enjoyed "The Big Short" more, this one is still pretty good. The book takes you inside the organizational culture of an Investment Bank "Salomon Brothers", which Michael Lewis had worked, as a Bond Salesmen. The book is quite descriptive, interesting and really gives you a feel of what it is like to be a Bond trader or salesmen at that firm during the 1980s, however it is not very informative if you are looking to learn some Finance from reading this book.

Very well written, easily one of the best books I have read to date... The best Christmas present I received this year. A true insight into Wall Street in the 1980's, presented in a concise way, with humour perfectly laced throughout. Will definitely read again.