Quote:
Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy
Jan - May 2008 vs Jan - Dec 2006 prices available here:
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/I...s/Pnk_0608.pdf)
I can only count a few commodities that are "down" globally in the last three years -> fishmeal, domestic US sugar, global sugar, and zinc are the only commodities with prices are down in the last three years... out of 72 commodities listed only 4 have downward trends in the past three years.
It would be interesting to see some longer term trends on those same commodities.
On all of the indicators, Agriculture, food, fats and oils, grains, and fertilizers have had greater gains in price, and most others have had similar gains to oil's, all of them in double digits.
I can't believe that people are not also talking about natural gas being over $10/MMBtu again around these parts especially.
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I wish I had saved a link to the web site, but I found a graph recently that showed that the overall commodity index was almost triple its 2001 low. At the same time, there has been a massive increase in the money supply. Under these conditions we should really be seeing hyperinflation, but inflation remains relatively tame.
What I have begun to wonder lately is whether it's not so much that the value of commodities has gone up, it's that the value of everything else (and principally, labour and anything with a labour component) has gone down. This would be the natural consequence of globalization, in a global market where there is an excess supply of labour.