The World for Sale

When it comes to trading in raw materials, there are no rules. Commodity traders make a living by supplying the world with raw goods like oil, grain and metal - no matter how war-torn, famine-stricken or corrupt the country of origin. These are the men who bought oil from Libyan rebels in the midst of the Arab Spring; who took sugar from the Cuban government at the height of the Cold War; who helped Saddam Hussein illicitly sell his resources to the west. It is an industry that affects us all, but whose workings have been deliberately concealed from our view. Now, two Bloomberg journalists tell the full, inside story of how raw materials are bought and sold in the twenty-first century. They risk everything to meet the tribe of billionaires responsible for keeping the planet stocked with raw materials, uncovering a world of big egos and even bigger pay cheques. And they travel the globe - from the oil fields of Kazakhstan, to the copper mines of the Congo, to the gleaming skyscrapers of New York - to recount the most shocking tales from this hidden world of multi-million pound deals. If you have ever felt uneasy about how petrol gets from the Middle East to your tank, or wondered where the metal in your phone comes from, this book offers the answers. It reveals a ruthless underbelly to the world economy - one that no consumer can afford to ignore