I read the book. I have not seen the movie, but should. While reading the book, I wondered how they would explain the complexities of what Wall St. was doing. The clip posted from the Vegas sequence did an excellent job of bringing it down to layperson. Literally, the CDO guys were the dumbs**ts on the block. Can’t tell you how many times I saw this same exact scenario play out in other areas of the baking world beyond mortgages. The difference was that those were only of a size to cause losses that mostly did not take down the bank or the rest of the banking industry. Residential mortgages is such a huge industry that when you add in the leveraged betting went on, the resultant damage was no surprise.
I worked in wholesale and commercial banking from 1990 to 2008. I saw all of this going on. Although I did some very large and innovative transactions, over time I became better known for the deals I did not do (and lost others lots of money). Unfortunately, not doing deals means you’re not making budget and that eventually gets you a pink slip, which was my fate in 2008. Fortunately, I take my mind with me and have made quite a bit on my own investments. Also, I recently started a position at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco where I am a credit risk specialist covering the $300 Billion North Anerican portfolio of the 8th largest bank in the world. They wanted me for my breath of experience on various loan assets and figured they can train me up to be an examiner at the ripe old age of 54. They fly me around the country to meet with c-suite execs to talk shop about what keeps them awake at night. I get paid to read an ungodly amount of information that provides me with a pulse on the economy. Fortunately, the bank I cover is rather healthy.
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