Liar's Poker: From the author of the Big Short

The only thing history teaches us, a wise man once said, is that history doesn’t teach us anything.

This, I made a note at the time, is what distinguishes work from school. Curious minds were not what Massey was after. Massey was looking for cult followers.

What Milken was saying was that the entire American credit-rating system was flawed. It focused on the past when it should have focused on the future, and it was burdened by a phoney sense of prudence.

In any market, as in any poker game, there is a fool. The astute investor Warren Buffett is fond of saying that any player unaware of the fool in the market probably is the fool in the market.

“The casinos down here are dull compared to the shit we do.”

Most of the time when markets move, no one has any idea why. A man who can tell a good story can make a good living as a broker.

Why did investment banking pay so many people with so little experience so much money? Answer: when attached to a telephone they could produce even more money. How could they produce money without experience? Answer: producing in an investment bank was less a matter of skill and more a matter of intangibles – flair, persistence and luck.

Knowing about markets is knowing about other people’s weaknesses.

He disapproved of work days longer than eight hours because, he said, “You then arrive at the office in the morning with the same thoughts you left with late the night before.”