The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
On The Absurdity (and Incompetence) of Government
21/02/11 08:11
I couldn't resist posting this excerpt from this morning's Politico Playbook written by Mike Allen:
BEHIND THE CURTAIN - Michael Lewis, in a new afterword to the paperback edition of "The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine": "Half a dozen U.S. senators phoned to chat [after publication of the hardcover] ... The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which had been created by Congress to investigate the causes of the collapse, became a kind of pestilence in my life. ... Most of what I knew about the financial crisis I knew from the characters in my book. Yet important people who read it felt the need to talk to me rather than to these people who had firsthand knowledge of events. ... The absurdity of the relationship between author and government finally became clear on the sixth call from the Financial Inquiry Commission. It came from a man assigned to formally depose witnesses. It quickly became clear that he knew more than I did about the U.S. financial crisis ... An hour or so into the conversation he asked me who else in the U.S. government I had spoken to about the financial crisis. I rattled off the long list of dignitaries I had met in the last few months. 'So what did they tell you?' he asked. ... 'What did THEY tell ME?' 'Yes, any insights into what happened. Anything we might pursue.' 'No, no, no,' I said, 'you don't understand: THEY called ME to ask what happened.' With that, he began to laugh." $9 on Amazon http://amzn.to/erGqbY
Remember that these are the people running this country...
BEHIND THE CURTAIN - Michael Lewis, in a new afterword to the paperback edition of "The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine": "Half a dozen U.S. senators phoned to chat [after publication of the hardcover] ... The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which had been created by Congress to investigate the causes of the collapse, became a kind of pestilence in my life. ... Most of what I knew about the financial crisis I knew from the characters in my book. Yet important people who read it felt the need to talk to me rather than to these people who had firsthand knowledge of events. ... The absurdity of the relationship between author and government finally became clear on the sixth call from the Financial Inquiry Commission. It came from a man assigned to formally depose witnesses. It quickly became clear that he knew more than I did about the U.S. financial crisis ... An hour or so into the conversation he asked me who else in the U.S. government I had spoken to about the financial crisis. I rattled off the long list of dignitaries I had met in the last few months. 'So what did they tell you?' he asked. ... 'What did THEY tell ME?' 'Yes, any insights into what happened. Anything we might pursue.' 'No, no, no,' I said, 'you don't understand: THEY called ME to ask what happened.' With that, he began to laugh." $9 on Amazon http://amzn.to/erGqbY
Remember that these are the people running this country...
0 Comments