Category Archives: Commodities

Richard Alford: The “Dutch Disease” and Once and Future Economic Crises in the US

By Richard Alford, a former New York Fed economist. Since then, he has worked in the financial industry as a trading floor economist and strategist on both the sell side and the buy side.

The term Dutch Disease refers to negative macro-economic effects on a country of a boom in commodity exports or other developments that result in large capital inflows. It may be that the Dutch Disease contributed to the recent US recession and that the prospective energy-led US economic recovery could amount to nothing more than another bout of the Dutch Disease.

The Case for 4% Inflation

Yves here. Some readers are likely to recoil at the idea that more inflation might be a good thing. But the flip side is that economists are still fighting the war of the 1970s.

New Paper Links Food Price Inflation to the Power of “Agro-Trader Nexus” (ie, Monsantos + Cargills)

Joseph Baines’s new article, “Food Price Inflation as Redistribution: Towards a New Analysis of Corporate Power in the World Food System” is a must read if you care to understand how major corporations exercise hidden influence on our daily lives.

Gold Crash Signals End but End of What?

Whither gold?

Real Pragmatism for Real Climate Change: Interview with Dr. John Abraham

Dr. John Abraham is a thermal sciences researcher and professor at the University of St. Thomas, in Minnesota who has straddled many worlds in his quest for answers to climate change, from working with the US defense industry to pro-bono work creating low-cost energy solutions to Africa’s remote areas.

Dr. Abrahams discusses:

• What climate change REALLY means
• How the Earth’s warming bears a human fingerprint
• How we can do something now about climate change, with today’s technology
• How and why the public remains ill-informed on the issue
• How Hurricane Sandy can be viewed from the climate change spectrum
• How the Earth’s warming has a human fingerprint
• Where the silver lining in all of this is
• Why Keystone XL will probably (but shouldn’t) be green-lighted
• How ‘micro-wind’ may be a hot seller in our renewable future
• How the future could see a merger of interests in the fossil fuel and alternative energy sectors

The Dangers of a Chinese Financial Crisis

Yves here. Even the China bulls are coming to see the financial system as a risk factor.

Gas and Stock Prices: Tied Together By Speculators?

If you are old enough to remember the 1970s, the idea that gasoline and stock prices would be correlated seems bizarre.

Philip Pilkington: Hyperinflation! The Libertarian Fantasy That Never Occurs

By Philip Pilkington, a writer and research assistant at Kingston University in London. You can follow him on Twitter @pilkingtonphil

While it is probably true that no one has ever gone broke underestimating the intelligence of the public, it is also true that many who try to turn a profit from stupidity often become the victims of their own nonsense. As we have discussed previously, the fear industry that has grown up since 2008 – mainly centred on the gold market – is a manifestation of this dynamic.

China Decides that South China Sea Oil is a National Asset

By John Daly, a non-resident scholar at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and chief analyst at OilPrice. Cross posted from OilPrice

While the Western press is fixated on both recent North Korean nuclear tests and Beijing’s recent skirmishes with Japan over the Senkaku (“Diaoyu” in Chinese) islands, other maritime issues have developed further south, where China is involved in sovereignty disputes over the Spratly islands’ 750 islands, islets, atolls, cays and outcroppings with the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei.

Banks on the Counter-Attack in the Food and Finance Debate

By Jennifer Clapp, Professor in the Environment and Resource Studies Department and CIGI Chair in Global Environmental Governance, Balsillie School of International Affairs, University of Waterloo, Canada. Cross posted from Triple Crisis

NGOs have stepped up their critique of large investment banks’ involvement in agricultural commodity derivatives markets in recent months. Now, it appears that the banks are starting to fight back.

Philip Pilkington: The Fear Industry – Austrian School Propaganda and the Gold Market

By Philip Pilkington, a writer and research assistant at Kingston University in London. You can follow him on Twitter @pilkingtonphil

When you survey the websites and the pundits of Austrian economics on the internet you tend to get a niggling feeling that they’re trying to sell you something.

Dan Dicker: Aubrey McClendon and the Destruction of the Natural Gas Market

This post on the near term outlook for natural gas may give environmentalists cheer.

Iran on the Offensive

Until now, the Arab oil producing countries of the Persian Gulf, also called the Arabian Gulf, or to those seeking political neutrality, simply the Gulf, looked at their Persian neighbour with suspicion and trepidation. The fear came from mainly the military superiority that Iran wields over the Gulf, Persian or Arabian, depending on how you prefer to call it.

The Persistent Power of Finance, Um, JP Morgan

By C.P. Chandrasekhar, Professor of Economics, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Cross posted from Triple Crisis

In a move that went contrary to what is expected of regulators, the Securities and Exchange Commission of the US approved in mid-December a controversial JP Morgan-created exchange-traded fund (ETF) backed by physical supplies of copper.