Always wanted to read a Michael Lewis book, and now I have. It’s an account of the progress of the new depression as it effects five different countries: Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Germany, and the good old USA. Partly I wanted the information: what is happening? How serious is it? Who’s to blame? And partly I just wanted to see what makes Lewis so popular.
It was a fun read. In Iceland, fisherman leave their boats to become bankers. In Greece, monks become millionaires by swinging shady real estate deals with the government. The world is not run by grown-ups, and those punished for sins are not necessarily those who have commited them.
Lewis always opts for the vivid character or the epigram over complexity or ambiguity. Scoundrels around the world have broughts scorn and ruin down on themselves and their nations. Cassandras have gone unheeded—except by Lewis, of course.
