Malthus Re-examined

Last week we received a couple of responses to our comments that seem worth sharing. The gist is that the long term stimulus for rising U.S. commodity prices is more closely connected to increasing global buying power relative to our dollar than it is to an inability to sustain crop trend yield increases.

Source: WSJ

Yesterday's Omaha World-Herald article about U.S. debt is in line with those comments.  Bill Gross runs the world largest bond fund, PIMCO.  His followers say that U.S. Treasuries "have little value" which drives "investors" to commodities and adds to market volatility. 

Does a rising debt ceiling drive down treasuries' value? 

Corn prices have doubled over the past year. (Source: FCStone)

As a side note, Bill Gross must view philately as an alternative investment.  He is the only person to have amassed all the U.S. postage stamps that have ever been issued (via a commodity arbitrage).  In the World-Herald photo, he is even wearing an Inverted Jenny stamp tie.

Members of the CFTC's Agricultural Advisory Committee will be meeting next month and Dodd-Frank will be on our agenda.  If you have concerns about futures position limits, margins or other areas, please send them to us or write directly to Commissioner Mike Dunn at the CFTC.