Boomerang
by Michael Lewis · first published 2011
59% recommend41% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Engaging, narrative look at how cheap debt and bad financial decisions hit Iceland, Greece, Ireland and others after 2008; suits readers with a light interest in macroeconomics who liked The Big Short.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
As Pogo once said, "We have met the enemy and he is us." The tsunami of cheap credit that rolled across the planet between 2002 and 2008 was more than a simple financial phenomenon: it was temptation, offering entire societies the chance to reveal aspects of their characters they could not normally afford to indulge. Icelanders wanted to stop fishing and become investment bankers. The Greeks wanted to turn their country into a piñata stuffed with cash and allow as many citizens as possible to take a whack at it. The Germans wanted to be even more German; the Irish wanted to stop being Irish. M
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I've just finished reading "Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World" by Michael Lewis, a follow-up to "The Big Short". It's an enlightening and sobering read as it shows how destructive the temptation of cheap money (i.e., debt) was to…
on “The euro zone: Is this really the end?” ↗I cannot recommend the book Boomerang by Michael Lewis enough. He examines what several countries (Greece, Ireland, Iceland, Germany, the United States) did between 2000-2012 when they were allowed to barrow vast sums of money with little…
on “Why the Economic Fates of America’s Cities Diverged” ↗In no particular order: * Boomerang by Michael Lewis * Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson * The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins * The Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk
on “Ask HN: Best book you read in 2011” ↗Boomerang by Michael Lewis is a pretty book on the Icelandic financial crisis. If you've read the Big Short, then Boomerang is a look at the reverberating effects of the financial crisis of 2008 throughout the…
on “Let banks fail: Iceland’s plan looks to be working” ↗To anyone interested in this article, I would recommend reading the book Bommerang: Travels in the New Third World by Michael Lewis: http://www.amazon.com/Boomerang-Travels-New-Third-World/dp/0...
on “Iceland put top finance executives behind bars, but fears of cronyism remain” ↗…make a higher return and keep the difference. I'd recommend reading up on the Federal Reserve (The Creature from Jekyll Island), the modern financial system (any of Michael Lewis's books, especially Boomerang and The Big Short), and maybe the first global banking families (The Medicis: Power, Money, and Ambition in the Italian Renaissance). We're talking about the power structure of the world here and it's…
on “Robinhood launches 3% checking account” ↗…documented in every cycle in history. Don't read Mises.org, or at least not only. Read John Kenneth Galbraith's work: "A Short History of Financial Euphoria", "The Great Crash". Read Michael Lewis' work: "Boomerang", "The Big Short". Read even the pop economics works that expand on how people think, versus how they act: "Nudge", "Thinking: Fast and Slow". Read Nate Silver's "The Signal and the Noise", and you'll…
on “The Coming Change in Monetary Policy” ↗Another great book to read is Michael Lewis' Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World (2012) which is a compilation of articles on the 2008 recession that he wrote for Vanity Fair magazine. The one on Iceland is called "Wall Street on the Tundra - Iceland"…
on “Iceland sentences bankers to prison for their part in the 2008 collapse” ↗The Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg (highly recommended) Steve Jobs - Walter Isaacson (recommended) Modern Romance - Aziz Ansari (audiobook recommended) Boomerang - Michael Lewis (great if you have a light interest in macroeconomics) Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future (recommended) Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell (recommended) Joyland…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?” ↗…a house of cards built on fraud. Without the Eurozone, Greece would have faced bankruptcy and/or hyperinflation, but instead they got bailed out by the rest of the EU. Check out Michael Lewis's book Boomerang that covers the distinct problems Iceland, Ireland and Greece faced. The TL;DR on Greece is a country with massive social spending and tiny tax receipts, that took out massive and entirely unsustainable…
on “Austerity Breeds Financial Protectionism” ↗I've just finished reading Boomerang by Michael Lewis and that huge concentration of assets in real estate sounds awfully like Ireland before the crash of 2008 - on a tiny scale compared to China, of course. Do you think that is valid comparison?…
on “The Macroeconomics of Chinese kleptocracy” ↗Sorry for the goose chase it was actually the book Boomerang by Michael Lewis which goes over the various debt crises of the past decade in Iceland, Ireland, and Greece. It ends with a section talking about the bankruptcy of Vallejo and it talks about the unsustainable…
on “Turkey Purges 4,000 More Officials, and Blocks Wikipedia” ↗…normal. You could see the concrete pillars with the steel bars coming out on top. Imagine it is some kind of way to dodge taxation since it is still considered unfinished? Have also read Michael Lewis' "Boomerang", which also has a lot of similar anecdotes about Greece (and Iceland, Ireland, etc).
on “In Greece, Property Is Debt” ↗…billion dollars. You sell me the dog for a billion, and I sell you the cat for a billion. Now we are no longer pet owners, but Icelandic banks, with a billion dollars in new assets.'" Michael Lewis in Boomerang
on “Absurdly High Valuations” ↗According to Michael Lewis (in both The Big Short and Boomerang) Germans banks were famous worldwide as being an excellent source of "stupid money". http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec11/makingsen... "The Germans made just about every bad investment…
on “Germany, Not Greece, Should Exit the Euro” ↗