The World for Sale
Money, Power, and the Traders Who Barter the Earth's Resources
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4.5 • 13 Ratings
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
The modern world is built on commodities - from the oil that fuels our cars to the metals that power our smartphones.
We rarely stop to consider where they have come from. But we should.
In The World for Sale, two leading journalists lift the lid on one of the least scrutinised corners of the world economy: the workings of the billionaire commodity traders who buy, hoard and sell the earth's resources.
It is the story of how a handful of swashbuckling businessmen became indispensable cogs in global markets: enabling an enormous expansion in international trade, and connecting resource-rich countries - no matter how corrupt or war-torn - with the world's financial centres.
And it is the story of how some traders acquired untold political power, right under the noses of western regulators and politicians - helping Saddam Hussein to sell his oil, fuelling the Libyan rebel army during the Arab Spring, and funnelling cash to Vladimir Putin's Kremlin in spite of western sanctions.
The result is an eye-opening tour through the wildest frontiers of the global economy, as well as a revelatory guide to how capitalism really works.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bloomberg News journalists Blas and Farchy debut with a colorful and alarming exposé of the shadowy world of global commodity trading. Willing to go "where others fear to set foot" in order to barter the essential staples of the world (grain, oil, minerals), some commodity traders are impervious to politics, patriotism, or principles, according to the authors. They describe the chief executive of "the world's largest oil-trading company" landing in Benghazi during the Libyan civil war to do a deal with Libyan rebels, detail how a Marc Rich + Co employee pretended to be a representative of Burundi in order to buy oil at a discount, and note that traders who violated sanctions in order to do business with South Africa in the 1980s helped to sustain and prolong apartheid. Blas and Farchy also detail how the U.S. Justice Department under attorney general Eric Holder aggressively prosecuted and curtailed the activities of rogue traders. Hair-raising anecdotes about "swashbuckling" traders "walking on the edge of the knife" keep the pages turning, but Blas and Farchy sometimes get caught between glamorizing their subjects and condemning their actions. Still, this an engrossing look at an obscure yet consequential corner of the financial world.
Customer Reviews
Great book for anybody interested in commodities
In order to understand where we are now in this latest commodity boom it is important to know the history behind it all. This book does a great job talking about how the modern commodity trading houses Glencore, Trafigura and Vitol came to be. It also covers how commodity trading has changed over the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union to the rise of China.