As slippy as an eel
Ok folks, anything big breaks I am here. However, check out this book review on a little book I recently read on the Libor scandal out of the UK. Here was my take on it.
When it goes down, people need someone to blame. This book is a fascinating true account of how Stelios Contogoulas was scapegoated for the Libor scandal around 2005-2007, but ultimately found not guilty. See here for a quick catch up on what happened.
This is a great book on human nature - blame anyone you can, and lie to keep your head off the block. It's a repeated pattern we all know too well. It also shows an incredible personal struggle from Stelios which he ultimately overcame.
I read this book as I wanted to get a personal account of how the Libor scandal happened. If you don't quite buy the official line, you may find Stelios' account far more accurate. It certainly rang true to me in just how incredibly ordinary and mundane his account was of the so called 'conspiracy to defraud'. In short, it had the ring of truth from an honest man.
At the end of the day someone had to take the blame. However, has a culture that everyone just accepted been ignored? Just goes to show that it pays to do things by the book. The tricky bit comes when the book hasn't been written. This seemed a procedural issue that became political that then had all the eels wiggling to escape from. Anyway, for a quick read it is a decent insight into one man's battle. Well done Stelios, you overcame. You can see his twitter page here.
