TOW #20: "Liar's Poker" Part 1

              Michael Lewis’s Liar’s Poker is an account of Lewis’s own experiences as a bond trader on Wall Street. In the first half of the book, he covers many chapters of his life including his college years at Princeton, his search for a job, and his time as a trainee. Lewis explores the colorful yet consistent characters of Wall Street workers that give the title of “bond-trader” the accurate reputation it has acclaimed.

              It becomes apparent early on that Lewis has mixed feelings about his time on Wall Street. It seems that his purpose in writing the book was to emphasize the negative sides of the occupation. This is evident in his reasoning for not pursuing economics in college. On pg 30, he says “people were pursuing economics for all the wrong reasons.” One reason, clearly, was the desire to get rich. Lewis acknowledges this. He knows that a book about why making millions can be miserable may seem unconvincing when written by a man who has made millions himself. At points, he echoes what were his, and probably many economists’ motives today, to join the trading game. On pg 33 he puts in italics “I want to be an investment banker, Lehman Brothers is the best, I want to be rich.” He also acknowledges the obvious argument against his idea (being rich is better than being poor because you can buy more things). When he is telling the story of a “Liars’ Poker” game between the haughty traders Gutfriend and Merriweather, Gutfriend contemplates a wager of $10 million. At this point, Lewis interjects himself to state “It WAS good to be rich.”

              Lewis is certainly thorough enough to give the reader an idea of what Wall Street is like. He also does a fine job of acknowledging the primordial bias that anything that makes (a ton of) money is the best option. However, the story is somewhat unsatisfying in the way it is written. The liars’ poker game, for instance, never took place in the writing. Surely it will later in the book, but Lewis’s tendency to jump around makes the book irritating to read at times.