You need to read “The Big Short Extra Credit” and answer the following questions:

1. What is “the lie at the heart of the economy?”

2. What role did the rating agencies play—Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch? Were they at fault, or was the system such that they were forced to become unwilling partners?

3. Steve Eisman, Mike Burry, and the men who ran the "garage band hedge fund" made huge fortunes off the downfall of others. Do you see them as prophetic heroes, greedy opportunists...or something else? How does Lewis portray them?

4. Follow-up: Why did a handful of outsiders foresee what would happen with the sub primes while neither the heads of the large financial firms nor government regulators saw what was coming, Do you think it was genuine ignorance (the derivatives were simply too obscure to understand) or willful ignorance (no one really wanted to turn off the money spigot)? What about the risk managers for the Wall Street firms—where were they in all of this?