Watch the movie "the big short". It's really good. This is from one of the scenes where too guys try to get a license. Although the manage a few million dollars, in order to get the license they should have even more. Or as it turns out the right connections.
Michael Lewis, author of the Big Short, also wrote Liar's Poker about his experience at Solomon Brothers in the mid-eighties where things like mortgage backed securities were invented. It's captivating.
Yep, plus that. Although I had to buy the Dutch (My native language) version too (first bought the English version). The subjects are pretty difficult so reading about them in my native language worked better for me.
Reading the comments, I'm struck by how I read this scene totally differently to most of them. I see an overworked, annoyed young analyst sent to deal with two rich kids (starting a hedge fund with money they made 'taking boats down the river', then skipping the ISDA requirements by calling their neighbour) who are wasting everyone's time by not even doing the absolute minimum research -- it was 2006, just Google ISDA and you find out the requirements.
Also a security guard kicking out two men in suits from a lobby is just weirdly unrealistic.
"JP Morgan Employee : But, uh... you guys are under the capital requirements for an ISDA.
Charlie Geller : By how much?
JP Morgan Employee : [thinking] Uh... how much? One billion, four hundred seventy million. So... a lot.
Charlie Geller : This makes us look bad, doesn't it? That we didn't know what the capital requirements were?
JP Morgan Employee : Uh... it's not great. But keep up those returns and give us a call way down the line, you know. Okay?"