The Crude Truth: Do you want to know why you're paying so much at the pump these days? Raymond J. Learsy, a longtime commodities trader, explains the real facts behind today's outrageous gasoline prices by lifting the veil from the Mideast oil cartel. He shows how OPEC manipulates the oil markets with results that are destabilizing to the world's economy and threatening to America's national security. With refreshing candor and an insider's perspective, Learsy explains how OPEC: - promotes a bogus perception of oil scarcity in order to hike prices and gain political power. - is compromised by connections to Islamist terrorists, who fuel anti-American hatred with dollars from our own pockets. - keeps Third World populations in crushing poverty, despite rich oil deposits found in their countries. - became the de facto master of Iraq's newly liberated oil fields. Along with a sweeping survey of OPEC's methods of economic domination, Over a Barrel offers a well-informed strategy for busting the Mideast oil cartel and charting our nation's course towards energy independence.
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.
Currently, he is a member of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Ray Learsy's richly informed analysis of the international oil trade, OPEC, and its impact on the American and world economy has been featured in the National Review Online and the New York Times.
