Business is screaming it isn’t the problem and attempting to discredit the fix.  Plenty on the left and the conservative right say the fix doesn’t go far enough.But what is it that needs to be fixed?  Perhaps the best answer is in a timely interview with Michael Lewis and a review of his latest book, The Big Short.If you saw “60 Minutes” last nite or have your hands on Michael Lewis’ latest book, you know what he has to say.Understanding the macro issues is no easy task, but Lewis intends to make it fairly easy for us.  If The Big Short, is anything like his earlier books, Liars Poker, Money Ball or the New, New Thing, his readers will be in for a fascinating and illuminating ride through the meltdown.Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes attempted again and again to place blame and turn the conversation into an ethical black/white, good/bad discussion.  But Lewis is too smart and too honest for that simplicity.Instead, Lewis found that the meltdown was built on flawed mathematical models that most financial executives did not really understand themselves.  He believes that the roots of the meltdown are found in the development of complex, opaque financial products like mortgage derivatives.  As Lewis describes it, Wall Street hid the risk by complicating it, and by getting the rating agencies to give triple A ratings to bonds that were poor quality.Lewis, in his ever colorful prose, describes the investors who went from the stock market to bond markets as “like a small, furry creature raised on an island without predators removed to a pit full of pythons.”Lewis, like most great writers, has the ability to introduce his readers to complex subjects, make them quite intelligible and do it all with a great deal of narrative panache.You’ll find the CBS 60 Minutes interview here.  The New York Times review is here.
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