Liar s Poker-说谎者的扑克牌.doc

Liar_s_Poker-说谎者的扑克牌
Liar's Poker
By Michael Lewis
I
Preface
I WAS A BOND salesman, on Wall Street and in London. WW. W. Norton, Ion Trewin and Hodder & Stoughton, all of whom gave guidance and paid on time. Also Robert Ducas and David Soskin for intelligent advice. Finally, he wishes to thank his parents, Diana and Tom Lewis. They are, of course, directly responsible for any errors, sins, or omissions herein.
Liar's
Poker
"Wall Street, " reads the sinister old gag, "is a street with a river at one end and a graveyard at the other. "
This is striking, but incomplete. It omits the kindergarten in the middle.
-Frederick Schwed, Jr., Where Are the Customers' Yachts?
I
Chapter One
Liars Poker
IT WAS sometime early in 1986, the first year of the decline of my firm, Salomon Brothers. Our chairman, John Gutfreund, left his desk at the head of the trading floor and went for a walk. At any given moment on the trading floor billions of dollars were being risked by bond traders. Gutfreund took the pulse of the place by simply wandering around it and asking questions of the traders. An eerie sixth sense guided him to wherever a crisis was unfolding. Gutfreund seemed able to smell money being lost.
He was the last person a nerve-racked trader wanted to see. Gutfreund (pronounced Good friend) liked to sneak up from behind and surprise you. This was fun for him but not for you. Busy on two phones at once trying to stem disaster, you had no time to turn and look. You didn't need to. You felt him. The area around you began to convulse like an epileptic ward. People were pretending to be frantically busy and at the same time staring intently at a spot directly above your head. You felt a chill in your bones that I imagine belongs to the same class of intelligence as the nervous twitch of a small furry animal at the silent approach of a grizzly bear. An alarm shrieked in your head: Gutfreund! Gutfreund! Gutfreund!
Often as not, our chairman just hovered quietly for a b