Originally aired 4-4-2010
After a fight within the Democratic party, the House passed a spending bill this week that rolls back one of the most important provisions of Dodd-Frank. When it passes
the Senate, taxpayers will be back on the hook for the big banks' gambles on derivatives and other exotic financial instruments. I thought it was time to play this interview with MICHAL LEWIS about how Wall Street's corrupt casino culture led to the Crash of 07-08 - because we've just given them license to do it again.
Both Ira Glass and Malcolm Gladwell say today's guest is their favorite storyteller. In his books and magazine articles, Lewis writes about sports, business, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, political campaigns, fatherhood. Stuff that matters to a lot of people. He's smart and he has a sense of humor.

Lewis was a trader at Salomon Brothers before he wrote his first best-seller, LIAR'S POKER about the excesses of Wall Street during the 1980s. He continues to write about that world with his last two books, a column for Bloomberg, and articles in Vanity Fair.

In this interview recorded four years ago,we talk about THE BIG SHORT. But Lewis is so good at making obscure financial information accessible to readers, that I asked him to spend much of the hour defining terms that laid out the path to the Crash - securitization, derivatives, credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, etc. I highly recommend this guide to the dark side of finance.