Quicklet on Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis

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Published in 1989, best-selling Liar's Poker details author Michael Lewis's time in the London office of Salomon Brothers in the mid-1980's. Written after he left the firm in 1988, the book tells the story of 1980's Wall Street in a wickedly funny manner, featuring some of the most interesting characters to walk across the pages of non-fiction. Along with Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities, it is generally considered to be one of the defining books of the era.

The name is taken from liar's poker, a gambling game popular with Wall Street traders. Though Liar's Poker has not yet been made into a film, Lewis is currently in discussions with Warner Bros. about a film adaptation.

BOOK EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER 3 OF THE QUICKLET ON LIAR'S POKER

But all that began to change in late 1979. Michael compares making money on Wall Street to eating the stuffing out of a turkey; first somebody must stuff the turkey. In 1979, the bond turkey started getting stuffed. Two parties were responsible. The first was Fed chairman Paul Volcker, who on October 6, 1979, announced that interest rates would no longer be fixed. Money supply would be fixed, and interest rates would float. In practice, this meant that interest rates would swing wildly. And since bond prices moved inversely to interest rates, bond prices would swing wildly as well. In one move, the bond market was changed from a sleepy backwater for a safe investments into a casino. The second was the governments, corporations, and consumers of the United States. Specifically, their desire to borrow money. The rate of borrowing increased during the 1980's faster than it ever had before; the indebtedness of all three groups totaled $323 billion in 1977. By 1985 it was $7 trillion.

…to be continued! Quicklets: Learn More. Read Less.