Against the Rules: The Big Short Companion
Pushkin Industries
Recent Episodes
Of all the characters in The Big Short, fund manager Michael Burry (depicted by Christian Bale in the movie version) seemed the least likely to grant Michael Lewis a follow-up interview. Burry was one of the first to see the subprime housing market crisis coming, and he actually helped Wall Street banks develop the credit-default swap, the instrument that allowed short sellers to make their bets against the market. Lately, Burry has been in the news again because his fund has taken short positions against tech giants Nvidia and Palantir. Now he finally sits down with Lewis as part of this series.
Burry recently launched a newsletter called Cassandra Unchained.
Order The Big Short audiobook, now narrated by Michael Lewis, on Audible, Spotify, pushkin.fm/bigshort or wherever you get audiobooks.
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To wrap up our series on The Big Short, Michael Lewis speaks with two people who represent two very different responses to the financial crisis of 2008: US Senator Elizabeth Warren, an expert in bankruptcy law who became an advisor to the Obama White House before running for higher office in Massachusetts. And Michael interviews former Trump White House advisor and right-wing podcaster Steve Bannon, who talks about how the financial crisis radicalized him.
Order The Big Short audiobook, now narrated by Michael Lewis, on Audible, Spotify, pushkin.fm/bigshort or wherever you get audiobooks.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
To make sense of Wall Street’s hangover from the crash described in The Big Short, Michael Lewis calls up Matt Levine. Levine is author of the Money Stuff newsletter for Bloomberg Opinion and co-host of a podcast by the same name. He’s also a former investment banker who was working at Goldman Sachs during the market crisis of 2008. He and Lewis talk about Bitcoin, bank regulation, and new forms of risk-taking — all ways Wall Street has changed since the crisis.
Order The Big Short audiobook, now narrated by Michael Lewis, on Audible, Spotify, pushkin.fm/bigshort or wherever you get audiobooks.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Andrew Ross Sorkin writes the business and policy newsletter DealBook for the New York Times and is co-anchor of Squawk Box on CNBC. He also has a historical bent, and has a new book out about the causes and consequences of the Great Depression in the 1930s. Sorkin speaks with Michael Lewis about how that crisis differed from the financial crash of 2008, and what we can learn by comparing the two eras.
For more, check out Sorkin’s book 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History, and How it Shattered a Nation.
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When Michael Lewis wrote The Big Short, there was an extra character in the story: The Federal Reserve System, the central bank of the US, which bought up bad debt on the balance sheets of big Wall Street banks and trading firms. To better understand the Fed’s role in the financial crisis of 2008, Michael turns to UC Berkeley economics professor Emi Nakamura. And in the process, we get a master class in how currency works, and why there’s still some gold in the vaults of the Fed.
For more, check out Emi Nakamura’s Macro Policy Lab.
Order The Big Short audiobook, now narrated by Michael Lewis, on Audible, Spotify, pushkin.fm/bigshort or wherever you get audiobooks.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.