Book

Russell, Rupert, author.

Price wars : how the commodities markets made our chaotic world / Rupert Russell.

First American edition.

New York : Doubleday, [2022]

viii, 276 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

"A shattering account of the destabilizing power of price, and a powerful critique of the free market philosophy that leaves the most vulnerable at the mercy of the commodities markets"-- Provided by publisher.

The Brexit vote; the unstoppable war in Syria; huge migrant flows into Europe; children placed in cages on the US border. What caused the wave of chaos that consumed the world in the 2010s? Russell shows that unrest in all these places was triggered by dramatic and mysterious swings in the price of essential commodities. Deregulation of the commodities markets means that food, oil and real-estate prices can shoot up even when supplies are normal. He shows that commodity traders in New York and London have destabilized societies all over the world, leaving the most vulnerable at the mercy of hunger, chaos, and war-- and have the power to disrupt the world. -- adapted from jacket

Commodity exchanges.

International finance.

Pricing.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction : monsters and mazes -- Prices -- Wars -- Climate -- Imaginings -- Conclusion : markets and madness.

Introduction: Monsters and mazes -- Prices. Chaos: why societies boil at 210 ; Magic: fairy tales, financial alchemy and the business of cargo cults -- Wars. Perception: pricing ISIS in Iraq ; Contagion: typhoons, Trump, Brexit, Brazil, belt and road ; Boom: Putin's chestiness engulfs Ukraine ; Bust: Venezuela's fractal apocalypse -- Climate. Multiple: climate chaos in Kenya from Mad Max to War Games ; Arbitrage: Al-Shabaab, the terrorist hedge fund ; Short: coffee, Coyotes, kids in cages -- Imaginings. Covid-19: the climate-finance doomsday device detonates -- Conclusion : Markets and madness.

332.64/4

9780385545853

0385545851

* 9780385545860

793911

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