[rdm70]

There are a number of people who foresaw the problems brewing in the CDO market. The book "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis provides a detailed portrait of a number of them. As usual, even when someone knows that the generally accepted wisdom is bunk, no one listens.

Another comment that comes to mind is from Warren Buffett, who famously called derivatives "weapons of financial mass destruction" years before the recent blow up.

[yummyfajitas]

While I completely agree that Burry foresaw the collapse of the housing bubble, Buffet didn't.

Buffet never described derivatives as creating a housing bubble. Buffet's problem with derivatives is that they make accounting tricky and fraud easier. But have no fear! Moodys (which Buffet owns about 20% of) will distill the complex accounting down to a simple letter rating. If Moodys calls a derivative "AAA", you know it's safe.

Snark aside, this was not a prediction of a housing bubble. CDO's did exactly what everyone thought they would do. They behaved like AAA securities for as long as the beliefs underlying them held true ("housing never goes down").

[arethuza]

I was more thinking of a review of academic publications to see how coupled they are to the finance industry.