I just watched the 60 Minutes segment on Michael Lewis and his new book, “The Big Short.” He had some terrific sound bites including my favorite about AIG: “…they didn’t know the mistake they were making.” Here’s one reason I’m buying the book.

As a stockbroker, I was wary of all the profit centers. Specialists—traders with deep and sophisticated knowledge of their products—were always gunning for client fees. They didn’t care about suitability. They cared about their P&Ls. Lewis makes a great point about the crisis of 2008: the specialists not only pitched clients, but also their own CEOs who didn’t understand what they were buying. Now, there’s a scary observation. And I want to read more.

On Thursday of this week, I’m discussing “Trust and the Capital Markets” at a conference hosted by NRC Focus in Amsterdam. When I return, I’ll post more of my thoughts about this issue of too many profit centers.

BTW, Amazon’s star ratings for The Big Short are misleading. At the time of this post, over half of the ratings are from people who use 1-star to voice their displeasure at the lack of a Kindle edition.

Norb Vonnegut