So, I don’t mean the world is full of people made of garbage. I mean that many human beings, too many (though that is probably subjective), are living embodiments of Mos Eisely, wretched hives of scum and villainy. These two books by Michael Lewis are about those people.
The Big Short, now a movie that I have not seen, is about the people who, in a way, foresaw the financial recession of 2008 and profited from it. Immensely. Funny though, those people are not the antagonists of the story. The protagonists simply took advantage of the greed and malfeasance of the banks and those that ran them. This book helps explain what happened but I think that a basic understanding of finance and the stock market is required to fully appreciate the book. That said, I listened to The Big Short while driving cross-country so there is the chance that Lewis did explain it clearly and I missed out on being able to really go back a look at his meaning. Even so, this was a very good, interesting read if you want to justify the anger you feel towards the entire situation.
The Fifth Risk lights a shorter fuse as it is more current. The book is about the transition between the Obama and Trump administrations, or lack thereof. It focuses on two departments within the US government, Commerce and Energy. It details how unprepared the president-elect’s transition team was to take on the mission of running the government. The author does strike me as biased but he also presents a very compelling case that, at the very least, explains why he is biased. Taken strictly at face-value, the decisions by the transition team, or again lack thereof, are horrifying and absolutely negligent. That is where the title of the book arises, a civil servant who was the Chief Risk Officer for DOE lists what the five greatest risks for the US are in terms of energy. This book will make you very, VERY angry. You will also never use Accu-Weather again.