Boomerang is not a top ten book of all time for me, but his storytelling was engaging enough to make me reflect.

Because this book was written in 2011, I wonder if it’s focus on sovereign insolvency due to amoral behavior and cheap credit didn’t resonate as strongly for me because it is now dated. Or it could be his writing and storytelling style, and how the author tends to impose his personal bias so strongly on the reader. Some of his descriptions of Icelanders, the Irish, Greek, Germans etc, are cringeworthy if not borderline racist.

But anyway. I digress.

As much as I disliked the book, the takeaway that I’m starting to realize that ties together with so many readings is the focus on self-regulation and human psychology:

He mentions (I wish more extensively), a changing environment that has not changed human wants and desires. Our brains evolved to survive on the savannah, an environment driven by scarcity and that has not adapted to the modern environment of abundance we now live in.

Michael Lewis argues this thesis from a financial standpoint — that when circumstance allow credit to run wild, such as the 2007 peak, we continue to operate with a scarcity mindset that ultimately leads to government bailout and insolvency.