Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World

Written by Michael Lewis

Narrated by Dylan Baker

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Big Short, Liar’s Poker and The Blind Side!

The tsunami of cheap credit that rolled across the planet between 2002 and 2008 was more than a simple financial phenomenon: it was temptation, offering entire societies the chance to reveal aspects of their characters they could not normally afford to indulge.

The Greeks wanted to turn their country into a piñata stuffed with cash and allow as many citizens as possible to take a whack at it. The Germans wanted to be even more German; the Irish wanted to stop being Irish.

The trademark of Michael Lewis’s bestsellers is to tell an important and complex story through characters so outsized and outrageously weird that you’d think they have to be invented. (You’d be wrong.) In Boomerang, we meet a brilliant monk who has figured out how to game Greek capitalism to save his failing monastery; a cod fisherman who, with three days’ training, becomes a currency trader for an Icelandic bank; and an Irish real estate developer so outraged by the collapse of his business that he drives across the country to attack the Irish Parliament with his earth-moving equipment.

Lewis’s investigation of bubbles beyond our shores is so brilliantly, sadly hilarious that it leads the American listener to a comfortable complacency: Oh, those foolish foreigners. But when Lewis turns a merciless eye on California and Washington DC, we see that the narrative is a trap baited with humor, and we understand the reckoning that awaits the greatest and greediest of debtor nations.

“No one writes with more narrative panache about money and finance than Lewis.”
—Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Oct 3, 2011
• ISBN: 9781442341265

Michael Lewis

Michael Lewis is the host of the podcast Against the Rules. He has published many New York Times bestselling books, including Liar's Poker, The Fifth Risk, Flash Boys, and The Big Short. Movie versions of The Big Short, Moneyball, and The Blind Side were all nominated for Academy Awards. He grew up in New Orleans and remains deeply interested and involved in the city but now lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, Tabitha Soren, and their children.

Reviews for Boomerang

[deldevries · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Michael Lewis is an outstanding financial and business writer. His investigation and connecting the dots are interesting and educational. He is able to illuminate complex subjects in an engaging manner.

[russwhite · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There is little else you can consider this book than a warning shot across the bow of the modern West. Where are we headed? According to Michael Lewis, to third world status. And like most places we want to get to, we're in a hurry to get there.The problem the author outlines is two-fold. First, we've focused power into a smaller and smaller set of experts (because we've truly come to believe that either you're an expert, or you have no right to speak at all), in the name of increasing efficiency. The problem is that efficiency isn't an ultimate good unto itself. Efficiency must serve some greater master.Efficiency in the financial markets has created an uncontrollable beast —for efficiency in the financial markets simply means to trade money so fast that only a small number of people can actually keep up. That small number of people become infinitely wealthy on the backs of those who aren't experts. Efficiency, in the financial markets, turns out to be finding the most efficient way to transfer wealth from the uninformed into the hands of the informed.The second problem Mr. Lewis points out is that along the way to bringing ourselves every conceivable pleasure, we've changed as people.==Even if it is technically possible for these people to repay their debts, live within their means, and return to good standing inside the European Union, do they have the inner resources to do it? Or have they so lost their ability to feel connected to anything outside their small worlds that they would rather just shed the obligations? -Page 82==The author blames this on our evolutionary past —but the truth is far closer to what the Scriptures say is true about people than what evolution says.==We are set up to acquire as much as we can of things we perceive as scarce, particularly sex, safety, and food.” ... The effect on the brain of lots of instant gratification is something like the effect on the right hand of cutting off the left: the more the lizard core is used the more dominant it becomes. “What we’re doing is minimizing the use of the part of the brain that lizards don’t have,” says Whybrow. “We’ve created physiological dysfunction. We have lost the ability to self-regulate, at all levels of the society." -Page 204==According to evolution, we have nothing but a "lizard brain;" there is simply no way for this "other brain," the one that self-regulates to exist. So what we face here is a spiritual condition, a condition the Bible clearly describes —Paul wishing he could stop doing what he knows is wrong. We're all Eve in the Garden, deciding between eating the apple because "it's good for food, and it's beautiful, and it's good for gaining knowledge," and doing what God has told us to do.And we each, every one, fail the test every day.A sobering look at what market efficiency can gain when it unleashes the human animal.

[benkline · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A very interesting, and entertaining, look at the financial crisis mainly of 2008-2011. Primarily Greece, Ireland, Iceland, Germany, and California [US]. As an interesting juxtaposition I was reading this at the same time as reading Steinbeck's "Travels with Charley" while being trapped in a 30" snowstorm in PA. Lewis is an exceptional writer at getting to what something is - why it is - why it works - why it doesn't work - and the people behind it all. His actual travels to Iceland, Ireland, Germany, and Cali are all detailed and the collection of people he interviews comes to life easily and intelligently. You get behind the people and understand the financial crisis - which in the terms of these banks and the way the different collapses happened for these different places isn't the easiest to understand (for a non-Economic bent mind like myself).

[newsieq · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

After reading the author’s The Big Short, which provided insight into the financial meltdown of 2008, I thought Boomerang might prove to be a lighter read. Although it was a fast read (I started and finished it the same day), Boomerang wasn’t exactly light. In fact, reading it so quickly probably wasn’t a great idea. In Boomerang, Michael Lewis visits four countries – Iceland, Ireland, Greece and Germany – to put a spotlight on three of Europe’s faltering economies and one country that just might “save” them. The feeling these stories engendered was slight dyspepsia. Mr. Lewis has a curious ability to find quirky interview subjects, and often focuses on their insights and delusions, their strengths and weaknesses – as he did in The Big Short. This he also does for the countries he visits. He also has a wonderful writing style – comic and tragic in turns. He subtly outlines and illuminates the absurdities in his stories and subjects without bullying them or seeming moralistic or judgmental – he leaves that up to his readers.Then the author visited one last country (the United States, specifically California). Piled on the other stories, reading about California’s problems was just plain sad. When a prison guard in California earns $100,000 and is allowed to retire after five years and receive a pension almost that generous – how can anyone believe that’s sustainable? Yet California’s political gridlock is not that much different from that of the US Congress … and that doesn’t bode well for any quick recovery from our economic doldrums.I’ve read a string of books about Wall Street and the US economy recently, and that may seem like masochism to some people. Oddly, I feel better understanding the US and the world as they really are. It makes me feel I’ll be able to sort out the rhetoric in next year’s presidential and congressional elections and figure out whom to believe.

[Lee Liberman · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

The book on this app is incomplete and skips around incorrectly

[michael_lilly-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Oversimplified and dumbed down approach to a serious problem. I am a Michael Lewis fan, but this was a big step down from his other books I have read.

[liscarey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Published in 2011, when the financial crisis was still fairly fresh in everyone's mind and we had not yet reached as much recovery as we eventually achieved, this is in some respects a look into the past. Yet none of Lewis's observations from his travels through a developed world still reeling from that crisis seem to have been proven truly false. Each country got into trouble in the world of essentially free money in the madness of 2003-2008 by following its own weaknesses and temptations.Greece was the only country he visited where the financial industry had nothing directly to do with the country's financial collapse. They were honest, they were responsible, and they could not impose honesty and responsibility on a government that took taking bribes for just doing their jobs for granted, people who saw no reason not to evade taxes, and an entire culture seemingly arranged around facilitating financial irresponsibility. When the financial problems started to show themselves, the new finance minister discovered that no one really had any idea what the government's deficit was--and as he started digging out the real numbers, the truth was horrifying.In Iceland, it seems ludicrous to say and yet has a bizarre plausibility, that the men have a very macho, risk-taking culture that goes along with centuries of open ocean fishing being the main national source of income, and the women have a much more pragmatic, practical culture grounded in keeping everything working on land while the men were away fishing. And the two cultures didn't interact much. When the men discovered, in the era of free money, that they could stop fishing and get fantastically rich with offshore investments built on practically nothing, they weren't discussing these wonderful, exciting new ventures with the women who might have encouraged them to think about the lack of any real basis for the wealth and the consequences of it blowing up on them.He also visits and analyzes Ireland and California, but in some ways the most interesting country is Germany. There were no wild and crazy investments in Germany. There were no wild and crazy investments in Germany. But careful, responsible German banks bought up unbelievable amounts of US securitized subprime loans. They had in some respects the greatest exposure of all. They didn't break any laws; they followed all the rules. These were, after all, AAA-rated securities, so they were completely risk-free, right? The German bankers check all the boxes, followed all the rules, and never really thought, certainly never asked, what those AAA-rated US real estate securities really contained. And Germany, to a great extent, was left holding the bag.It's a fascinating story with some interesting revelations I hadn't been aware of before. It's a really good listen.Recommended.I bought this audiobook.

[sarcher-3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A book published in 2012 about how so little had changed/been learned from financial events in 2008. A baffling read in 2019, where still nothing seems to have changed and "we remain at the mercy of the failed financial institutions that sit at the cent of our capitalism" (page 215). Only reason I gave it middling rating is because I can't imagine rereading it in the future because of it's specificity. I'm sure Lewis could write a new version of this book twice a decade.

[bragan_8 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Years ago, I read Michael Lewis' book The Big Short, about the subprime mortgage crisis. It didn't fully succeed in helping me wrap my brain around exactly what went on there, but it a least made a good attempt at it. Well, Boomerang is his follow-up to that, in which he looks at the global financial crisis that followed in the wake of that whole debacle, specifically in Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Germany, and the US state of California.And, I have to say, I found the financial stuff Lewis is covering in this one easier to understand, but perhaps even harder to fathom. My big takeaway here is that people are nuts, governments are nuts, the things that we do with money are nuts... and the abstract actions we take with this essentially imaginary substance can have deeply serious real-world consequences. Which is perhaps a good thing to be reminded of.For all that it's depressing -- and it is pretty depressing -- this is also a fairly entertaining read. It's not a dry account of what happened (or was happening in 2011, when this was published), but a personal narrative in which Lewis travels to the places he's contemplating and talks to various interesting people, with lots of his own personal commentary included. There is, perhaps, a lot of room to disagree with him on some things, including his thoughts on what each country's specific situation says about their national character, and it's by no means a comprehensive look at the subject of global finance problems. But overall it's quite eye-opening. I'm just sorry it took me this long to get to it.

[gayla.bassham · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I am usually a fan of Lewis's work, but this book came across as snarky and glib. I couldn't help but feel that Lewis was phoning it in a bit after the huge success of Moneyball and The Big Short.

[marcusbastos-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Money PartyThe capitalism party is very compelling. Money abounds. Everybody is happy. Wishes become reality. The problem is: someone has to pay the bill. Michael Lewis notes that financial crisis produces its worst effects in Iceland, where everybody is an investment expert; in Greece, where everybody is smart and therefore evades his basic obligations; in Ireland, where private losses are guaranteed by public funds; in America, where one can borrow money despite his capacity of pay it. This party is possible because someone else (some other country, some other people) pay the bill. Michael Lewis tells this story without any meaningful reference to the inequality that made it possible. I guess, it's a shame!

[brumby18 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

not as good as the rest of his stuff but very readable - bit depressing really - had a bit of a bitter laugh with the current US president's election happening ...

[gmmartz · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Michael Lewis has a knack for writing about complex stuff in a way that makes it interesting and digestible to a layman. In this case, his subject is the debt crisis that has hit Europe and its impact on some of the key national players (primarily Greece, Iceland, Ireland, and Germany). It ends with a look at what's happening in our own backyard in California.

As I was reading, I had the feeling that the material was possibly a byproduct of other work he'd been producing, and after finishing I discovered it was comprised of a series of articles he'd written for Vanity Fair magazine (apparently available for free on-line). No big deal- I had borrowed it from the library anyway. It holds together well, but just has a little different feel to it.

Boomerang tells the story of the crises that have hit these countries in a very entertaining way. He introduces us to unique characters who contribute to our understanding of the problems, and through generalization and opinion he provides a pretty thorough summary of the causes. The pace is good, the writing crisp, and as usual Michael Lewis has helped me learn about an important almost-daily topic in the financial press in a very concise and fun way. From a content standpoint, the sections on Greece and Ireland were great contrasts, Germany comes off looking very upstanding yet naive, and California is a place that will always be great to visit, but not necessarily to live. My only critique is about how the stereotyping of the national personalities was used.... it was helpful in a sense but contributed to a sort of 'cartoonish' feel to some of the content.

All-in-all, a nice, quick read that'll teach you a lot about things that affecting your 401K.

[thebookjunky · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Who knew it could be so enjoyable reading about the financial crisis, explained with examples from several key areas of the world? Fascinating. Iceland, Greece, Ireland, USA -- these are some of the countries in what he calls the New Third World. We have been undone by our ancient lizard nature of greed, where short term satisfaction overwhelms common sense. Hilarious and sobering all at once.

[strandbooks_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I've had Michael Lewis books on my list of books to read for years, but never picked one up. After I saw The Big Short last week, I immediately went to the library. Of course, The Big Short has a long wait list due to the movie so I chose this one. I couldn't put it down. No wonder so many people have recommended his books to me!Boomerang looks at how governments acted during the sub-prime boom and bust. He carries a great analogy throughout the book: in the early 2000s the world financial sector turned off the lights in a room with loads of cash that countries across the world could do what they want with it. The bust happened, lights came back on, and we got to see what governments did with the money. The bust showed how vastly different the cultures are and what people value. He profiles Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Germany and California. Yes, there's a good amount of finance description that went over my head, but for the most part Lewis is profiling people he meets and then putting them in context with the facts. In many parts it reads like good travel writing. Yes, there are generalizations about cultures. Considering how each culture dealt with the situations so differently, I felt Lewis was right in showing how these characteristics led each country to the decisions they made. I would recommend you either see or read The Big Short before starting this book.

[susanbeamon · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is another interesting look at the recent great disturbance in the world's financial stability, its' causes and results, focusing on five major population centers. Different societies and cultures all show one of the basic problems with people: once greed gets a hold on the national psyche, all bets are off and disaster beckons. Credit is dangerous and unlimited credit is fatal. I enjoyed reading this book. It gave me more information on the recent worldwide depression and the slow recovery that has plagued the start of this century. I think I understand it better than I did before.

[martinbodek · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Michael Lewis ratcheted up the quality of his work with this book, a natural outgrowth of his excellent "The Big Short." It is funnier by miles than many of his other works, more well-researched by many degrees, broader in scope yet finely detailed, and flummoxing with the revelations of jaw-dropping particulars. I understand something about Lewis now, he likes to tell stories through the eyes of outlandish and outsized human beings. They're in spades here. Great read.

[alexrichman_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

To adapt the old saying, I'd read a phone book if it was written by Michael Lewis. As a spin-off from The Big Short this isn't one of his seminal works, but it still contains plenty of fine vignettes; best of all are the two top Greek economists who insist on meeting the author separately because they can't stand each other. "This, I'm told, is very Greek."

[eachurch-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A remarkable book about economics that made me laugh out loud, cringe at the things greed causes people to do, and grimace with fright at how fragile the global economy can be.

[angelina0justice · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This tour of both foreign and domestic economies is equal parts enlightening and frightening. I think the conclusion of this journey is much more complicated than what Lewis conveys in summation. But this book is a strong first step for the layman.

[mldavis2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lewis is a journalist who specializes in political analysis. This is a thoroughly documented history of economic meltdown in Iceland, Germany, Ireland and Greece resulting from unregulated banking and socioeconomic policies that have failed these countries and that threaten much of the western world as well. It is a warning to those who will listen. While the topic may seem heavy, it is well written and relatively easy to read, as well as being entertaining. It is a "must read" for anyone even remotely interested in world economic failures and current policies.

[pidgeon92_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Best book I listened to this year.

[thewanderingjew_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Michael Lewis has the gift of gab! His book on the financial crisis (the economic debacle that hit the United States and Europe, that almost brought the whole world down and of which we are not yet out of the woods), is so easy to read and so filled with wit that one forgets the horrific images of the failure that the book is describing; he makes plain what was the complete amorality or stupidity of the bankers, the investment brokers and the clients that they serviced, as they all marched toward the fantasyland that they created in which anyone could have whatever they wanted and suffer no consequences for their actions.Contrary to that belief, when it came to fruition, the penalties for their irresponsible, unethical behavior were enormous, but often they hit those least guilty of offense. Those who were able, simply faded into the ether avoiding all the obligations they incurred, returned to their country of origin, went underground someplace and left others who behaved more responsibly, to pay their debts. They simply refused to be responsible for the errors of their ways and that applies to the originators of the schemes and those that took advantage of them.The debacle continues because once started a culture of takers is not easily dissuaded from taking more, even when the consequences are dire; rather than blaming themselves, they blame others; rather than taking responsibility, they pass it on to other’s shoulders, others who should not be picking up their freight. Unions bled the public with their demands, and once achieved, the culture perpetuated even more abuses as various unions competed for benefits.When Lewis describes, Iceland, Italy, and California (a state that has taken on the qualities of a country, in its failings), and the PIGS, the countries most involved in the scandals; Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain and then puts Germany in as the lynchpin, the only country still with a stockpile of actual gold (it is the country that basically will bail out Europe, alone, if willing), he does it with such simplicity and humor, the reader will gasp and have to suspend disbelief at his revelations. Californians still want more of the same, a nanny state, benefits without cost, Greece and the Greeks refuse to abide by the rules imposed, refusing to pay their taxes, so the resolution of the crisis is still up in the air, and on ad infinitum. Although they do not want to adjust their lives or work to pay for their mistakes, the Greeks fully expect the Germans to do it for them because they are frugal and orderly; however, in their own country, they too aided in the execution of the financial debacle by investing in other countries that were running amok. Everyone involved wanted to make a quick buck off the back of some rube!At the core of many of the financial failures are US bankers, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Bros, Citibank. They brought down the financial world with the schemes they all learned to create in the hallowed halls of Yale, Harvard, etc., in the most esteemed educational institutions of the world, because they learned that greed rules!Lewis describes a world of finance in which the players make a mockery of reality. The disaster was a monumental Ponzi scheme that even when recognized was allowed to proliferate and continue until it brought down the economies of major countries. He does it with such a light hand using layman’s terms so that the reader will want to laugh at his presentation; they might also want to cry at the truth of all his pen has put to paper. Can we all be such fools and are we all blinded so by greed that we will believe anything told by even the most inexperienced charlatans, simply because of the chance to get rich? Almost half way through the book Lewis uses this quote by Isocrates:“Democracy destroys itself because it abuses its right to freedom and equality. Because it teaches its citizens to consider audacity as a right, lawlessness as a freedom, abrasive speech as equality, and anarchy as progress.”In the end, will chaos be the result if the environment ceases to self-regulate causing the situation to spin further out of control?Lewis adequately describes the inability to place blame on the shoulders of those who engineered this crisis. Stupid people blame those who outsmarted them, the mortgage brokers are blamed by the mortgagees. None of them read the fine print or felt responsible for their own choices, none felt the need to pay back or borrow only what they could afford or grant loans only to those qualified. Who is to blame, the fool who was taken in or the person who took them in, perhaps without malice, but who underestimated how low a human could go to get something they didn’t deserve and then actually complain when they were asked to repay their debt? They all pretended to be victims, not the perpetrators of the crime. Governments, in collusion with the financial industry and simple human beings, all played dumb and looked for scapegoats rather than look to themselves for their own practice of madness. The one truth is that there were no innocents. Everyone who took part was guilty in one form or another but most people who are paying for their poor judgment are not the guilty ones, they are the ones who could not be heard when they rang the alarm bells. In this Ponzi scheme, like Madoff’s, the get rich-schemers of all stripes and in all countries, only succeeded because governments and the people allowed them to succeed. If common sense and cooler heads prevailed, it could have been avoided. It was a failure of government, regulators, and human beings, en masse. They had short term vision and short term goals. In the long term, they failed.Michael Lewis has succinctly described and analyzed the personality and culture of the parties involved in this enormous financial scandal, fraught with fraud and immorality and he has done it in a highly readable fashion! In short, he sums it up with amusing anecdotes of “people taking what they could, because they could, without regard for social consequences”. Eventually, it is hoped that the situation will have to correct itself through attrition.

[daniel5estes · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Boomerang could be Lewis' unofficial sequel to his prior book, The Big Short, given that he's now looking beyond Wall Street at the effect of the global financial crisis on specific countries. Those earning a bit of scrutiny are Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Germany and California (not a country, obviously, but has a GDP that rivals one).Excellent journalism here, but not as engaging as The Big Short unless you follow the confusing language of global finance. The narrative does get stronger with each successive chapter so give it time to grab your attention.

[thejazzmonger · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent, highly readable account of the global real estate/securities bubble and subsequent crash.

[jmatson_12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I finally understand (somewhat) the global financial crash of 2008 and beyond after reading this book.It's truly a Looney Tunes world.Good read, btw.

[bigl_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is collection of essays on several countries affected by the global financial crisis. The selected counties include some of the so called PIGS and Germany with California. All of the essays are light and amusing yet reflect the serious side of a financial world gone out of control with clowns and pretenders squandering money like tomorrow would never come.Faults and follies of both the borrowers and lenders are pilloried in amusing detail with irony and some compassion. My favorite stories include the bank with the toilet at the summit of an office tower so that the CEO could say they he was crapping over his rivals, the Greek manner of taxation described as both corrupt and corrupting, the tax office that was never asked how much tax was collected by an about to become bankrupt government, and the preservation of elves in Iceland. (It appears that some Icelanders believe that elves can be made homeless so that when an alumina refinery was built some time and money was spent to ensure that no elves would be trapped by the building.) Such is the power of the writer that I was left wondering what and where are the elves in Australia.

[gshuk_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Uses story to tell how countries default on their debts. An easy entertaining insightful audio to listen to.

[robinthoman · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As Pogo once said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."The tsunami of cheap credit that rolled across the planet between 2002 and 2008 was more than a simple financial phenomenon: it was temptation, offering entire societies the chance to reveal aspects of their characters they could not normally afford to indulge. Icelanders wanted to stop fishing and become investment bankers. The Greeks wanted to turn their country into a piñata stuffed with cash and allow as many citizens as possible to take a whack at it. The Germans wanted to be even more German; the Irish wanted to stop being Irish. Michael Lewis's investigation of bubbles beyond our shores is so brilliantly, sadly hilarious that it leads the American reader to a comfortable complacency: oh, those foolish foreigners. But when he turns a merciless eye on California and Washington, DC, we see that the narrative is a trap baited with humor, and we understand the reckoning that awaits the greatest and greediest of debtor nations

[vguy_6 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Laugh out loud funny, but also a clear explanation of much of what has brought the financial system into the present mess. Good character readings and cultural observations ( Schwarzenegger's crazy bike ride as metaphor of his political style, the icelanders who bump into you all the time, the german obsessions with rules and scheisse, Irish long-suffering in misfortune). overall we get a sense of a world gone mad and wonder how anything works at all.