I’m currently reading the book The Dollar Crisis (more on that later), which discusses at length the consequences of the failure of Bretton Woods. (For those of you with more important things to do than study issues in global economics from the 1970′s, Bretton Woods was a system whereby the US dollar was pegged to [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Commodities'
Gold and the current account deficit … and the US debt
March 15th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Commodities, Economics
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Caffeine addicts, start saving your pennies. Coffee is about to get more expensive
May 12th, 2009 · Comments Off · Commodities, Information Design
From the FT we learn: “We are in a dangerous situation,” Andrea Illy, chief executive of Italy’s leading coffee company, told the Financial Times, warning that prices could “explode” due to supply shortages. His comments echo those of other industry players – and point to a sharp shift in sentiment among analysts. Until recently, it [...]
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Buy low … get engaged
April 9th, 2009 · Comments Off · Commodities, Fun
Diamonds, it seems, can once again be a girl’s best friend … even if your personal wealth hasn’t been growing by leaps and bounds. The FT reports that diamond prices have fallen by over 30% in the past year. Pick yourself up a couple extra carats … I mean carrots (Thanks deviantART)
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Best headline of the day: Cadbury tackles burping cows to reduce milk chocolate carbon footprint
March 2nd, 2009 · Comments Off · Commodities, Fun
From ConfectioneryNews.com (where all serious bloggers should get their news). And it wouldn’t be a post without a quote of some sort (emphasis mine): In partnership with the UK’s Carbon Trust, Cadbury calculated that milk in their milk chocolate product contributes just over 60 per cent of carbon emissions, largely hailing from the dairy cows. [...]
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Chart fun: sugar and milk in your coffee (revised)
February 2nd, 2009 · Comments Off · Commodities, Information Design
I previously published a chart mapping coffee and sugar prices. I published it for no other reason than to see if there was any correlation for two closely related items (at least closely related for me). I thought that a third item would be a worthwhile addition — milk, of course. Since 2004, 3 month [...]
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How oil traders are making money
January 14th, 2009 · Comments Off · Commodities, Financial Markets
The FT has a nice piece by Javier Blas on how oil traders are making money in this environment of low-priced oil. To summarize: you have to be able to physically store oil. From the article: Mr Jensen said investment banks were joining oil companies and traders and entering into floating storage deals. Shipbrokers said [...]
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Chart fun: Sugar in your coffee?
December 26th, 2008 · Comments Off · Commodities, Information Design
Commodities are particularly fascinating to me, as well as the relationships between them. In this chart I map out the relationship between the prices of coffee and sugar nearby futures contracts. It would make sense, from a consumer point of view, that the two might be related — the more coffee is drunk, the more [...]
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The price of chocolate
December 24th, 2008 · Comments Off · Commodities
The FT has some interesting stories in today’s news — not completely unrelated to the holiday season — about the price of cocoa and it’s impact on the chocolate industry. The first noteworthy bit of news is that the price of cocoa is at a 23 year high due to “concerns about dwindling supplies from [...]
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