Weekender: “The King of Oil” Review

King of Oil

Is there any prospect as frightening as a political show trial in the court of public opinion?
Reading about the 17-year government witch hunt for Marc Rich – the global commodities trader credited with inventing the spot oil market – I was reminded of an old quote attributed to Cicero:

A bureaucrat is the most despicable of men, though he is needed as vultures are needed, but one hardly admires vultures whom bureaucrats so strangely resemble. I have yet to meet a bureaucrat who was not petty, dull, almost witless, crafty or stupid, an oppressor or a thief, a holder of little authority in which he delights, as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog. Who can trust such creatures?