How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
He walked around the Las Vegas casino incredulous at the spectacle before him. [...] A society with deep, troubling economic problem had rigged itself to disguise those problems (6.45)
Going to the big subprime mortgage conference in Vegas is like entering the belly of the beast. It's bad enough knowing that the big banks are ripping off working-class Americans, but how is Eisman supposed to handle how much joy these people seem to be taking from doing so? Unfortunately, these people don't care too much about consequences—they just care about scoring a monster bonus.
Quote #5
"That was the moment when we said, "Holy s***, this isn't just credit. This is a fictitious Ponzi scheme." (6.50)
The existence of the "synthetic CDO" changes the game entirely. Whenever Eisman and company bet against a subprime bond, the banks take those bets, bundle them together, and turn them into new bonds. It's like betting against another person's bet. It's also extremely manipulative.
Quote #6
In Vegas, the question [...] ceased to be, Do these bond market people know something we do not? It was replaced by, Do they deserve merely to be fired, or should they be put in jail? (6.50)
At first, the guys at FrontPoint Partners think that the subprime market is just manipulative and unethical. As they learn more, however, they start realizing that this stuff might be illegal. When you put everything together—the exploitative mortgage loans, the blind eye turned by the ratings agencies, the rise of the synthetic CDO—the result is a criminally unjust system.