When I started this blog in early August, I was living near the equator in a city overlooking the Pacific, having packed up and shipped out of New York just after Bear Stearns blew up.  18 weeks ago, the Dow was solidly over 11,000, the 30-year bond was 4.6%, gold was $900, oil was $120 [...]

Almost all of the speculative froth has been blown off the agriculture sector in the past 6 months. The long-term picture for food still looks good, with the world population still growing like mad and Asia in a secular upswing (if cyclical trough). Grains are relatively cheap by historical standards (100 years, not 10!), and [...]