OIL AND FINANCE: THE EPIC CORRUPTION

Publisher: iUniverse.com (5/12/11) Language: English
ISBN-10: 1462018092
ISBN-13: 978-1462018093

Oil is a commodity that is essential to the world's economic well-being. But it is also an industry rife with corruption. In OIL AND FINANCE, author Raymond J. Learsy chronicles the problems within the oil industry and details how these issues affect both US and global politics.

Culled from a compendium of essays that first appeared in the Huffington Post throughout the last five years, OIL AND FINANCE provides an illuminating understanding about where we've been and where we're headed as a nation with respect to our fossil-fuel consumption, our environment, our financial system, our security, and our place on the global stage. It uncovers the truth behind oil pricing - including its speculation and manipulation, the politics of oil and its impact on our security, oil's influence on our domestic and foreign policies, OPEC's success, and the menacing impact of oil on the environment.

OIL AND FINANCE presents a real-time account of a nation in crisis. Filled with contemplations and reactions, it is also a call to arms and a battle plan. It communicates how we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil, develop alternative energy sources, stabilize our economy, shore up our national security - and prosper as a people.

 

Why It Was Necessary To Publish “Oil and Finance: The Epic Corruption”

Over Five Years ago the price of oil was ratcheting skywards and the transfer of wealth to oil interests both here and abroad was massive and unabated. Having worked over twenty-five years in the commodity trading world dealing in raw materials ranging from minerals to chemical fertilizers and basic commodities such as sulphur, oil and gas I became increasingly astounded at the misinformation that pervaded the understanding of how oil prices were determined and the willful disinformation that was being circulated to make us meekly acquiesce to a rigged, manipulated and speculator driven market. I frustratingly waited a few years expecting the press or our government to educate us otherwise.  Instead the disinformation being disseminated was being accepted as gospel, virtually without questioning or cogent examination. All the while we were made to pay and pay and pay.

Both out of near disbelief and anger at what was happening to the price of oil and the ability of the oil industry and its allied interests to muffle most any argumentation or government initiative placing into question their holy writ, I decided to try on my own to make some dent into this miasma of oil company and OPEC PR handouts by writing a book on this now perilous subject entitled “Over a Barrel: Breaking Oil’s Grip On Our Future”.

Shortly after the first version of “Over a Barrel” was published in late 2005 I was asked to become a contributor to the then new and valiant “Huffington Post”. Starting in January 2006 I have had the opportunity to follow and write about the trials and tribulations of the oil market. These redacted and reorganized political essays, which originally appeared in the Huffington Post over the past five years, chronicle the financial and environmental malfeasance of the oiligopoloy and their allies in the finance industry during that period.

Oil is a commodity that is essential to the world’s economic well-being. But it is also an industry rife with corruption. In OIL AND FINANCE, I have attempted to chronicle the problems within the oil industry and detail how these issues affect both US and global politics.

OIL AND FINANCE provides an illuminating understanding about where we’ve been and where we’re headed as a nation with respect to our fossil-fuel consumption, our environment, our financial system, our security, and our place on the global stage. It uncovers the truth behind oil pricing-including its speculation and manipulation, the politics of oil and its impact on our security, oil’s influence on our domestic and foreign policies, OPEC’s success, and the menacing impact of oil on the environment.

OIL AND FINANCE presents a real-time account of a nation in crisis. Filled with contemplations and reactions, it is also a call to arms and a battle plan. It communicates how we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil, develop alternative energy sources, stabilize our economy, shore up our national security-and prosper as a people.


VIDEO

BIO

Raymond J. Learsy, a graduate of the Wharton School, made his life in the fast-paced, risk-filled world of commodities trading, beginning in 1959. In 1963, he started his own firm and over twenty years expanded from the U.S. into Canada, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Brazil, and Pakistan, trading in an array of bulk raw materials and commodities, shipping to customers worldwide. In the 1980s, he shifted gears as a private investor, from 1982 to 1988, served as a Reagan appointee to the National Endowment for the Arts...