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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Business
Tom Perkins

Ukraine, Brexit, Arab spring have one source – prices, says sociologist

A truck transports wheat in a field during harvest in the Omsk region, Russia.
A truck transports wheat in a field during harvest in the Omsk region, Russia. Photograph: Alexey Malgavko/Reuters

The Ukraine invasion, Brexit, the Arab spring, Donald Trump’s “children in cages” and other chaotic events throughout the last decade all sprang from one “deceptively simple” source – prices, according to sociologist and documentarian Rupert Russell.

In 2000, President Bill Clinton deregulated commodity markets under the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, allowing much greater Wall Street speculation on the price of necessities like oil, wheat, metals and coffee. In the ensuing years, the investment influx turned the commodity markets into “casinos” that yielded wild price spikes and collapses detached from physical supply and demand, according to Russell.

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