Swimming with Sharks: Inside the World of the Bankers

by Joris Luyendijk

'It's not the people who are bad, it's the culture.'

'Friends turned on me, on my wife.'

'This job involves in some part selling your soul for a good salary.'

'You're sitting there, and you may have just made the decision that destroyed the world.'

Winner of the NS Public Prize for Book of the Year 2015

Joris Luyendijk, an investigative journalist, knew almost nothing about banking until he was assigned to investigate the financial sector. Over two years he spoke to more than 200 people - from the competitive investment bankers and elite hedge fund managers to downtrodden back office staff and those made redundant in regular 'culls'. They opened up about what they actually do, about the toxic hiring and firing culture and about the overwhelming technological and mathematical opacity of their work. They admitted that in the crash of 2008, they hoarded food, put their money in gold and prepared to evacuate their children to the countryside. And they agreed that nothing had changed since then.

• ISBN10: 1783350652
• ISBN13: 9781783350650
• Publish Date: 7 July 2016 (first published 15 September 2015)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Guardian Faber Publishing
• Edition: Main
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 288
• Language: English

Reviews

[remo]

Un periodista que quiere entender de qué fue en realidad el crash de 2008 se dedica a hacer entrevistas (anónimas en su mayor parte, porque en banca si hablas estás fuera) a doscientos trabajadores del sector financiero de la City londinense. Poco a poco, pincelada a pincelada, entrevista a entrevista, el autor va pintando el cuadro de las finanzas globales. El autor termina el libro con unas cuantas recomendaciones imposibles (que los bancos no hagan productos con riesgo excesivo, por ejemplo, como si fuera posible poner una cota a lo excesivo de un riesgo) y en general termina con sensaciones entre el aturdimiento, la ira y el pánico. Sin llegar a compartir esos sentimientos, sí estoy de acuerdo con el autor en más del 90% de los diagnósticos y las opiniones a las que va llegando, desde mi punto de vista de un insider de la industria. Muy recomendable. Instructivo y claro.