so they paid off michael burry in their out of pocket. they want to get paid off by aig and if they aren't paid off they've got a $13 billion loss. this was -- i don't defend this. i'm just saying what they're thinking. paulson and bernanke and tim geithner are thinking if we don't make the wall street firms whole the wall street firms are going to be believed -- are going to collapse. the market's not going to believe they're going to survive. >> a couple of them did. >> yes. and they would have all collapsed if that-- >> who did that hurt? >> who did that hurt from the collapse? >> yes. >> not wall street people. people -- the rest of the country got hurt. the rest of the country got hurt by what the wall street firms had been doing the previous five years generating this frenzy of finance where finance shouldn't have happened. >> take lehman brothers, who got hurt? can you give me an example if i'm out here just an ordinary citizen if i had stock in lehman brothers? >> yes. if you were a lehman brothers' bondholder you got hurt. if you

was writing them the characters, and theres a character who uses no profanity at all whos a -- michael burrythe doctor doesnt -- he doesnt use profanity. but then theres a character steve eisman who actually exists in the story and in the real world to run around and insult people on wall street. and so hes -- and thats how he sounds. so i couldnt remove it. i just simply couldnt remove it. it was too much a part of him and he is on a lot of pages. when we talk thats what comes out of his mouth. >> but at the end of your back in the last -- its not actually the last chapter but you have lunch with a former leader of a company that you work for how do you pronounce his name? >> john gutfreund who was the ceo of salomon brothers where i worked in my youth, my first job out of graduate school i worked as a bond salesman on the salomon brothers trading floor for a couple of years. >> quote, your f--ing book. why did he say that to you? >> well, he said, your f--ing book it destroyed my career and it made yours. i wrote a book called liars poker about that experience at salomon brothers. and he t

. >> there is as you know, michael burry who is a hedge fund manager in california who made a lot of money looking at the subprime mortgage situation in the previous years and saying to himself, this is crazy, it can't continue and he bet against it and made a lot of money. you were asked about it last month and you referred to him as a statistic illusion. he has an op-ed in today's "new york times" in which he questions whether or not you should be taking him more seriously and he says "mr "mr. greenspan should use his substantial intellect and un surpassed knowledge of government to ascertain and explain exactly how he and other officials missed the boat. if the mistakes were properly outlined that might both inform congress' efforts to improve financial regulation and make miggs takes." again, why aren't you more interested in hearing what he has to say. >> on the contrary, i was not referring to him specifically. there are three key groups of people. those who got -- those who got it wrong about what the complexity was about to emerge in -- that's the vast majority of people, mys

these investors that i write about -- why wasn't john paulson, paul peligrini, jeffery green, michael burrynd greg litman. there's a myth out there that everybody drank the kool-aid and everybody believed in the housing. my brother counts this data between 2000 and 2003 there were about 1400 mentions of the phrase housing bubble in u.s. publications. over the next three years there were 5500 mentions of the phrase. and there were big stories and prominent stories in other places so it wasn't the case that my investors the ones i write about were the only ones who were skeptical. there were a lot of people who were skeptical. so why was it they that came up with it. one of the reasons is they were -- some of them were a little late to the game and that can help good fortune here is important as well. so there were investors who put on this trade who bought credit default swaps this insurance on subprime mortgages. and they bought it in 2003, 2004 and nothing happened. and their bosses got upset. and they took the trade off or they took the trade off themselves and their investors got upset.