Lender of Last Resort

Against the Rules: The Big Short Companion

Pushkin Industries

Business, Society & Culture, Sports

4.6 • 9.8K Ratings

🗓️ 4 November 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Michael Lewis wrote The Big Short, there was an extra character in the story: The Federal Reserve System, the central bank of the US, which bought up bad debt on the balance sheets of big Wall Street banks and trading firms. To better understand the Fed’s role in the financial crisis of 2008, Michael turns to UC Berkeley economics professor Emi Nakamura. And in the process, we get a master class in how currency works, and why there’s still some gold in the vaults of the Fed.

For more, check out Emi Nakamura’s Macro Policy Lab.

Order The Big Short audiobook, now narrated by Michael Lewis, on Audible, Spotify, pushkin.fm/bigshort or wherever you get audiobooks.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an IHeart podcast.
0:04.8	Maybe you already know about naked short selling.
0:07.6	Maybe you personally shorted stocks yourself.
0:10.0	But do you know about the time short sellers ruined a Super Bowl, basically?
0:14.6	For me, I was a little late, but red flags went up like, what is going on?
0:18.8	This is really scary.
0:20.3	At Planet Money, we get the story behind the money to explain how money works.
0:25.4	Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:33.5	Pushkin.
0:41.4	Yeah. Pushkin. I'm Lydia Jean-Cott.
0:43.1	And I'm Michael Lewis.
0:44.2	This is the big short companion series on Against the Rules.
0:47.2	So in the last couple of episodes, we talked to people who were in the book.
0:51.8	And this episode's going to be kind of different because it's
0:54.6	actually about an institution, the Federal Reserve. In 2008, the chairman of the Fed was an economist
1:02.0	called Ben Bernanke. And there's a clip of him from your new audiobook of the Big Short.
1:09.3	Chairman Bernanke, the floor is yours.
1:12.7	At this juncture, however, the impact on the broader economy and financial markets
1:16.7	of the problems in the subprime market seems likely to be contained.
1:22.0	Chapter 7. The Great Treasure Hunt.
1:25.3	We will continue to monitor this situation closely.
1:29.9	That's Ben Bernanke of the Fed.
	...

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