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Deluxe 19.09.2005               |
 Over a Barrel - Breaking the Middle East Oil Cartel Deluxe
Author Company: Nelson Current
Category: 
Over a Barrel - Breaking the Middle East Oil Cartel Deluxe 1 stars (Don't get me started.. ...
File Size: 15.94 kB
OS: Windows 98 / NT / 2000 / ME / XP / VISTA
License: Hardcover - Time Limit, free to try, 16.49 to buy.
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Over a Barrel - Breaking the Middle East Oil Cartel - 1 stars (Don't get me started..
Over a Barrel : Breaking the Middle East Oil Cartel review:1 stars (Don't get me started...) - As the author of two books on Peak Oil, I admit to having a bias. Even so, I'd be happy to discuss Learsy's book in an even-handed way, questioning his arguments by stating counter-arguments, and supporting those with data. However, it is impossible to do this because Learsy makes no real effort to mount a scientific case in favor of his cornucopian assertions about plentiful oil for decades to come.
Instead, what he offers in his chapter "debunking" peak oilers is logical fallacy upon logical fallacy, with nary a fact to break the monotony. His favorite form of fallacy is the straw man: he attacks geologists like Hubbert, Campbell, and Laherrere for predicting that global oil production will follow a smooth bell curve--when NONE of them does so. He also says that most of the Peak Oil authors work for the oil companies or for oil-producing countries. How about some examples? I know just about every significant Peak Oil author (except Hubbert, who is deceased) and I can only think of one out of maybe a dozen who fits Learsy's description--which, if it were accurate, might lead the reader to think that Peak Oil authors have ulterior motives. These are just two examples out of many. It is really frustrating to see what should be a scientific discussion brought down to the equivalent of name-calling--evidently because the author has no actual evidence with which to argue his case.
Now to the author's primary assertion: that OPEC is gouging the world by imposing high oil prices. In fact, for most of its history OPEC has bent over backwards to supply oil at prices agreeable to Washington. The Saudis even let go of billions in potential earnings in the 1980s in order to flood the world with cheap crude so as to help bankrupt the USSR (it worked)--all to cozy up to George H. W. Bush and friends. Yes, OPEC countries could be spending more on production capacity, but the real reason for high oil prices today is that 33 out of 48 producing countries are past their all-time national production peaks. Global peak will probably occur within a few years.
Yes, let's implement the conservation measures Learsy advises. But let's bypass the scapegoating. We are all implicated: consumers, the oil companies, the producing countries, the governments of importing countries...and, oh yes, the economists (like Learsy) who have told us for years that we will never run out of oil because the all-seeing, all-knowing Market will always allocate resources wisely and provide substitutes whenever they are needed. 5 stars (Open your eyes!) - As a complete novice to the in's and out's of the oil market, I found Mr. Learsy's book, "Over a Barrel" an eye opening experience. I think the information is quite interesting and I am surprised that his incites into the connection of between the extremely high price of oil and the collusion that seems to exist between the Bush administration and OPEC is not more widely reported. This book is well researched and personal. Mr. Learsy is trying to reveal the facts as they are in our global race to consumption. Mr. Learsy does something quite unusual in that he combines the scholarly attention to detail and facts with the practical knowledge of the workings of the commodity market (he has been a commodities trader for years he tells us). Rarely to we find practice and theory working so closely together. He presents an argument that proves what many of us already feel; that oil prices are artificially manipulated and maintained by creating the appearance of scarcity. We are being manipulated by our fears once again. His argument for the existence of vast untapped oil reserves is quite compelling and one can feel in his prose the passion that he feels about how to change the our cultural dependency upon those who have been proven to be our enemies.
I found it interesting that Mr. Learsy also offers advise on conservation and shows a way towards reducing our overwhelming dependency upon oil. As i was reading the book i was expecting an argument for greater consumption and was surprised by his ideas for energy efficiency and the reduction of waste.
this is definitely recommended reading for anyone who wants to understand why oil prices, and especially the prices at the pump, are so high.
4 stars (Food for Thought) - When I finished the last page of Ray Learsy's Over a Barrel, I sat motionless for several moments, letting the carefully researched information provided in the book sink in. Then I hurried to log on to Amazon.com, expecting to add my favorable reaction to a chorus of praise. Imagine my surprise to find that the reviews already posted not only took issue with his central argument (oil supplies are far more plentiful than is commonly supposed and "shortages" are the product of manipulation by the Middle Eastern oil cartel) but did so in snide tones.
Although I do not have the array of fact at my disposal that Learsy presents and that the reviewers dispute, I have vivid memories of other "shortages" (e.g. in the late 1970s when gas lines were the norm for filling our tanks) that were suddenly replaced by plentiful supplies of this crucial fuel. How to account for this reversal other than the suspicion that the shortage was the result not of oil scarcity but of manipulation of the commodity?
I was especially impressed by Learsy's very practical advice for conserving oil and reducing our dependency on it. Who can argue that as a nation we need to pay more attention to conservation, finding sources of alternatives fuels and producing more energy-efficient vehicles?
The reviewer who saw in this book only "Bush-bashing" might be startled to know, as I have discovered, that Learsy is a staunch conservative Republican who has supported Bush in both the 2000 and 2004 elections. Surely, it was painful for him to share the information to which he is privy, and surely he has done so in service to a nation whose well-being he has placed above party politics.
As an English professor and author of many articles and three books in print (with a contract for a fourth), commodities are far afield from my areas of expertise--rhetorical theory and composition studies. But my profession and experience qualifies me to recognize sound reasoning and effective prose style when I see it. And as I read Over a Barrel, not only was I fascinated with the well-documented argument provided between its covers but with the author's articulate abilities to convey his ideas in graceful, accessible prose. To Over a Barrel, I say Hurray!! I hope to see more of Mr. Learsy's insightful analyses in print. Joanne Brown, Des Moines, Iowa
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