Swimming with sharks - Joris Luyendijk

AN EVENING STANDARD BOOK OF THE YEAR 2015

Joris Luyendijk, an investigative journalist, knew as much about banking
as the average person: almost nothing. Bankers, he thought, were
ruthless, competitive, bonus-obsessed sharks, irrelevant to his life.
And then he was assigned to investigate the financial sector.

Joris
immersed himself in the City for a few years, speaking to over 200
people - from the competitive investment bankers and elite hedge-fund
managers to downtrodden back-office staff, reviled HR managers and those
made redundant in the regular 'culls'. Breaking the strictly imposed
code of secrecy and silence, these insiders talked to Joris about what
they actually do all day, how they see themselves and what makes them
tick. They opened up about the toxic hiring and firing culture. They
confessed to being overwhelmed by technological and mathematical
opacity. They admitted that when Lehman Brothers went down in 2008 they
hoarded food, put their money in gold and prepared to evacuate their
children to the countryside. They agreed that nothing has changed since
the crash.

Joris had a chilling realisation. What if the bankers
themselves aren't the real enemy? What if the truth about global finance
is more sinister than that?