Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

1st Quarter 2022 Planted Report, a Strange Turn and More of the Same

As we rounded out the month of March the USDA has been busy assessing the planted acres around the United States, reported the 31st of March. Much to my prior post, there are not really any surprises as the data has indicated that the planting is mirroring last year…with a few caveats, most namely the […]

Trichet and King: it’s energy, VAT, and food!

The global inflation picture is heating up. On Google, a search of ‘inflation’ spanning the month of February 2011 gets 311,000,000. For one year ago, the same search parameters yielded 1,850,000 hits. Inflation’s on the monetary policy makers’ minds. But why? In the developed world, it’s a food and energy story! Seriously, look at German […]

Why I Don’t Do Market Timing

Starting in September, my income, such as it were, is basically in C$. Stephen Gordon explains, with graphics, why that has been such a bad trade. The scariest part: The 2002-2008 expansion provided significant real income gains, and more than half of those gains were due to the improvement in Canada’s terms of trade. So […]