Wall Street's Impotence Shows in Silence on War: Michael Lewis

Bloomberg ^ | 3/27/3 | By Michael Lewis

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Anyone who is honest will admit it's impossible to know if this is a good war or a bad one. That is, if it will contribute to, or detract from, the sum total of human suffering.

The success of the war against Iraq depends on how long it lasts, how many and what kind of people die, and how young Arabs and old North Koreans react. None of that is knowable. The violent war protesters on the streets of San Francisco are so moronic because they are certain when certainty is not possible. This war is a matter of subtle calculation, of weighing ever-changing costs against ever-shifting benefits.

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Michael Lewis so desperately wants to shout to the world "I'm a big fat liberal," but realizes this would expose his hypocricy and he'd never sell another crappy book (the first one was the only readable one anyway). So he has to satisfy hiself with dropping hints.

[wideawake]

Lewis sucks.

Even in his first book, he more or less tells the reader that he invented options. An uneducated reader of Liar's Poker comes away with the distinct impression that Lewis claims to have invented the concept of option hedges and arbitrage.

His entire spiel is that he was once an evil bond salesman but now he is a good journalist. Turns my stomach.

George Soros is a perfect example of the guilty-capitalist-turned-Communist, and Bill Gross is talking down the war in order to move Treasuries up to bolster his own heavy Treasury positions - what a freaking arsehole.

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When you right, you're right.

[LSUfan]

Went to the same high school with Lewis. He is a fraud. Word has it his wife wrote most of Liar's Poker. They divorced and nothing he has written since is worth 2 cents.

He was at best an average student in high school. Everyone was shocked when he got into Princeton. But his Dad was an alum and his mom's family has more money than God, so it isn't hard to connect the dots.

I have specific recollection of him riding around uptown New Orleans in his yellow jeep with a baseball bat next to the seat throwing eggs at convenience stores late at night.

[Mr. Bird]

I suppose when this is all over, Lewis will be seeking financial advice from Tommy Franks. What an idiot.

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I know several of the people he "worked" with at Solomon Brothers. In every case, the first time these people heard the name Michael Lewis was after the book hit the best seller lists.