Steve Eisman - is he the greatest Contrarian investor of all time?

I am currently reading a great book called the BIG SHORT by Michael Lewis, who also wrote the best seller, Liar's Poker. It tells the fascinating story of those who bet against the real estate bubble and made billions in 2009. Like the book by Andrew Ross Sorkin, "Too big to fail", it tells of the out and out greed of Wall Street which helped prime the world for a financial armageddon in 2008/2009.

A fascinating part of the book is the commentary about Steve Eisman, who went all in whilst working for Deutsche bank betting against the CDO's (collaterised debt obligations) which underpinned the sub-prime mortgage bond market. CDO's were in effect the insurance that brokerages used to protect themselves against default on bond debt and most of the Sub-prime bonds were protected by American Insurance giant AIG which had to bailed out by the American tax payer with $85 billion in September 2008 after the U.S. property market turned sour. At one point he was over $20 million in the red on his short positions in real estate companies and shorting CDO's, he ultimately made billions of dollars during the financial collapse of 2008 and 2009.

Highly recommended reading for those interested in the funs and games that went on behind the scenes during this last great episode in our financial history which very nearly led to the Great Depression Mark 2.