The Underbelly of the Global Economy: The Traders Who Buy and Sell the Planet’s Resources

Presenting the third William R. Rhodes ’57 Ethics of Capitalism annual lecture

Javier Blas discusses one of the least scrutinized corners of the world economy: the billionaire commodity traders who buy, hoard, and sell the Earth’s resources. It is the story of how a handful of powerful 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 centers.

Join us for a tour through the wildest frontiers of the global economy, as well as a revelatory guide to how capitalism really works.

Q & A will be moderated by Jeff Colgan, Interim Director of the Rhodes Center for International Economics & Finance.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Javier Blas is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy and commodities. He is co-author of “The World for Sale: Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources.”

[Arugula]

Fascinating lecture! Amazing content.

[GlassEyedDetectives]

Just find the speech from Arthur Jensen as he spells it out to Mr Beale in the classic film 'Network'....also look up Jarvis Cocker's' song 'Running The World'.

[hazelwray]

Helped Iraq avoid sanctions which killed 500.000 babies.
Helped Casto to survive the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Not all bad.

[CharlesBrown-xqug]

Do people highly educated in thermodynamic physics know of a higher consideration of nature that overrides accepting that diodes can rectify Johnson - Nyquest thermal noise power and, given the orderliness of consistent orientation in parallel, aggregate a DC residue from each diode into electrical power at any scale coproduced with refrigeration of equivalent thermal energy absorbtion?

[Natty]

Technically, you're writing about the most important war: the class war. And make no mistakes, it's the most vicious and devastating war there is.

[cityguyusa]

It's the policy that's the problem and why they haven't made oil trades transparent because they all got tbeir hands in the till. Barismo!

[sophiashakti]

So, traders, the middlemen caught TNCORPORATIONS by their balls 😂😂😂 the blackmail is simple: we can 😂😂😂 let the truth to surface 😂😂😂 Former colonies bite back 🎉🎉🎉

[Gordian]

Do not get in the way of men doing their job.

[witHonor]

The underbelly is the fat, gluttonous sloths that consume their feelings. Commodities are the backbone, the strength. Mischaracterization for self importance is disingenuous.