Liars poker. Michael Lewis

Foreword
I traded bonds on Wall Street and in London. Working on the trading floor of Salomon Brothers, I was at the epicenter of the events that gave the era its face. Merchants are masters of getting rich quick, and in the last ten years or so, many fortunes have arisen almost instantly. And the Salomon Brothers were undeniably the kings of the merchants. In the book, I have tried to describe and explain, without leaving the trading floor, the events and moods that determined the nature of the time. Sometimes this story begins to live an independent life, but still this is my personal story and my life. I still have a personal relationship with the money I didn't make and the lies I didn't tell, because that's my position in these events.

All this took place around the middle of the modern gold rush. Never before have so many untrained 24 year olds made so much money as fast as we did in New York and London in these ten years. Never before have there been such astonishing departures from the basic law of the market that no one can take away more than they put in. I have nothing against money. All in all, I'd rather have more of them. But I do not wait with bated breath for the golden rain to fall from heaven again. It was just a rare, stunning flash in a long and rather lackluster history of earning and spending.

It should be said that in accordance with the criteria by which we evaluate ourselves, I have achieved considerable success. I made a lot of money. Those who ran our firm often told me that someday I would be one of them - at the very top. I'd rather save the praise for myself for the end of the book. But the reader should know that I had no reason to treat my then employers badly. I started writing the book only because I decided it was better to tell this story than to continue to live in it.

Chapter 1
It was early in 1986, the first year of the demise of my Salomon Brothers firm. Our chairman, John Gutfreund, left his desk by the wall of the trading floor and went for a walk. In this room, bond traders rolled billions of dollars non-stop. Gutfreund kept an eye on business - just wandering around the hall and occasionally asking questions to the merchants. Supernatural sixth sense always led him to a place where a crisis was already brewing. He seemed to have a nose for money leaks.

He was the last person an overexcited and stressed trader would want to see. Gutfreund (pronounced good friend) liked to sneak up behind him unexpectedly. The man shuddered and lost, and this amused him, but not you. You were talking on two phones at the same time, trying to get away from the disaster, and you had neither the time nor the energy to even look at what was behind you. Yes, it was not necessary. His presence was felt like that. The space around you began to vibrate, as if in a fit. Everyone pretended to be insanely busy, but at the same time they did not take their eyes off the mysterious point exactly on top of your head. The whole body was seized by a mortal trembling, like a rabbit who felt the proximity of a boa constrictor. An alarm went off in my head: Gutfreund! Gutfriend! Gutfriend!

More often than not, our chairman hovered silently over you for a few moments and then disappeared. He was rarely seen. I've only been able to detect traces of his visit once or twice - mounds of ash on the floor behind the chair, like a visiting card of a beast marking its territory. Gutfreund's cigars produced longer, more regular barrels than the varieties smoked by the other bosses in our office. I always thought he smoked the most expensive brands. That was easily enough for the $40 million he got from the sale of Salomon Brothers in 1981, and the $3.1 million salary he paid himself in 1986 would have been enough, more than any other CEO on Wall Street.straight.

But on that day in 1986, Gutfreund behaved strangely. Instead of zigzag around the hall, terrifying everyone, he walked straight to the desktop of John Meriwether, a member of the Board of Directors of Salomon Inc. and one of the best bond traders in the office. He whispered a few words to him, which were heard by those sitting nearby. This phrase has become legendary at Salomon Brothers and has become a kind of company motto. He said: "For two, a million dollars, and don't cry."

For two, a million dollars, and don't cry. Meriwether instantly understood what he was talking about. The King of Wall Street, as Gutfreund was dubbed in Business Week magazine, offered him a game of million-dollar liars poker. He often played this poker after the end of the working day with Meriwether and six young the bond specialists on his team, and usually Gutfreund was ripped to the bone. Many thought he was just a bad player. Others, and there were many, sincerely believed that John Gutfreund was omnipotent in everything he undertook, and argued that he was deliberately losing; however, the question of intentions remained a mystery.

At that time, everyone was struck by Gutfreund's proposed rate. He usually bet several hundred dollars. A million was unheard of. The last two words of the challenge - "don't cry" - meant that it would be hard for the loser, but he had no right to whine, whine or moan. He does not have to beg for mercy and defeat is obliged to bear with dignity. But what for? — спросит любой, кого ни разу не величали TOоролем Уолл-straight. Why play these games? Why, in particular, challenge Meriwether, and not any other, less prominent member of the board? It looked like an attack of complete madness. Meriwether was the king of the game, the liar poker champion on the trading floor of Salomon brothers.

On the other hand, everyone on the trading floor knows that people like Gutfreund, people of the winning caste, never do anything without a reason; intentions are not the best, but there is always some idea - what and why. I was not a close friend of Gutfreund, but I knew for sure that everyone who worked on the trading floor played, and that more than anything he wanted to be one of us. I think he dreamed of impressing everyone with his dashing, like a boy diving in front of everyone from a high pier. But then there is no better opponent than Meriwether. In addition, Meriwether was perhaps the only merchant who would have had both the money and the spirit to play such a game.

Something needs to be explained so that you understand the absurdity of the situation. During his years at Salomon Brothers, Meriwether brought in hundreds of millions of dollars to the firm. He had the ability, very rare among ordinary people and highly valued by stock speculators, to completely hide his thoughts. Most people can tell by their voice or movements when they are losing money and when they are winning. At such moments, they are either overly relaxed or very tense. But nothing could be read on Meriwether. Whether he was in the pluses or in the minus, he kept on his face the same expression of indifferent readiness. I think he had a natural ability to control the two feelings - fear and greed - that most often lead to traders to ruin, and this gave him that nobility, which can only be characteristic of a man with a mad thirst for success. IN нашей лавочке многие считали его лучшим торговцем облигациями на всей Уолл-straight. People from other offices treated him with awe. People said about him "he's the best businessman in the area" or "he's an incredible risk taker" or "it's dangerous to play the poker of liars with him."

Young people who worked with Meriwether were fascinated by him. His boyfriends were between twenty-five and thirty-two, and he himself was in his early forties. Most of them had doctoral degrees in physics, mathematics or economics. But when they found themselves in front of his working console, they immediately forgot that they were trained as impassive and independent intellectuals. They turned into his faithful disciples. They were possessed by a passion for the poker of liars. It became their game. And they raised her to a new level of tension and risk.

John Gutfreund has always been a bit of an outsider in their game. For них ничего не значило, что «Business Week» напечатал его фото на первой странице обложки и назвал TOоролем Уолл-straight. This, in fact, is the whole point. Gutfreund was the King of Wall Street, but Meriwether was the king of the game. When the best edition of the country crowned Gutfreund, a malicious mockery swirled in the heads of merchants: stupid names and stupid faces often adorn these pages. To be honest, Gutfreund used to trade too, but this is the same as the memory of an old woman, how good she was in her youth.

Sometimes Gutfreund himself agreed with this. He loved to trade. In contrast to the work of a manager in trade, there was directness and honesty. You place bets and you either lose or win. When you win, everyone around you, up to the company's leaders, adore you, they envy you and are afraid of you,