The Big Short

[Stephen Masek]

Who else has read The Big Short? To me, it reads like a novel, as it focuses on the lives of several key people who saw the real estate mess coming years before others. It has plenty of technical detail, and is the only place I read how a strawberry picker got a $700,000-some loan.

The Orange County Register published this letter from me on 1/27/2005: "It seems obvious that there is not a real estate bubble. People in the United States feel wealthier than ever before, and cash-out refinancing and interest-only adjustable home loans make sense, since the baby boom generation is in its peak earning years and will be for many more years. Like the average citizen, our government is living on debt and sees no need to cut spending on ineffective programs and nonsense, despite the need for new spending to combat terrorists. Banks reward people who carry high revolving credit balances with their highest credit ratings. It all seems very similar to the years just before 1929, and makes me think that our entire economy, not just real estate, is in one big and very dangerous bubble."