Thursday, May 22, 2008

This may sting a bit...

While supposedly over 1000 farm organizations (doesn't that strike you as more than plenty?) celebrate the new farm bill, Congress seems to be in party-pooping mood. As I posted yesterday, blaming index funds has burst into high fashion just in time for scapegoat season.
"This unbridled growth raises justifiable concerns that speculative demand - divorced from market realities - is driving food and energy price inflation, and causing a lot of human suffering," said Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee that held the hearing.

With oil approaching $130 a barrel and a global food crisis looming, the panel heard testimony from experts about how speculative investment by institutional investors and hedge funds may be contributing to food and energy price inflation. [More]
Frankly, my dear, I don't give a hoot about how to precisely apportion the blame [credit?] for the commodity boom.

But I don't want to be in the line of fire when this baby blows, either.

So here is the test for readers at home: If you really, really think that demand alone is driving grain prices, buy the developing swoon as others bail out. If you think we've been bouncing along in a bubble, sell yesterday.

But there would be some bizarre irony in a bloated farm bill passing one day, and landing a crippling blow to grain trading the next. To be fair, I think specs will find a way around any lame legislative barrier, but things could get really silly for a while.

Color me credulous, but I think the possibility of a mediocre crop grows with every day I put on a sweatshirt. You are not going to keep prices down with that kind of problem, no matter how tall you can't be to enter the pits.

1 comment:

Ol James said...

On the NCGA's website I found the 1054 groups that signed on. Under the Info Center and Media Resources tab click on Letters. They are listed under "Coalition Letters to Congress Seeking Farm Bill Veto Override." There are some interesting groups there, and a few I had never thought, much less heard of. Here is an excerpt from the letter that just jerked my chain-
"“This is by no means a perfect piece of legislation, and none of our organizations achieved everything we had individually requested. However, it is a carefully balanced compromise of policy priorities that has broad support among organizations representing the nation’s agriculture, conservation, and nutrition interests.”
Should we not expect better from our Congress?? Much like the performance/pay scale of athlete's,(as you posted earlier), they are making enough to pass at least a fair piece of legislation. After all they don't mind going after an individual and holding them to a higher standard in the name of The American People. No wonder they call it "pork-barreling", there's enough fat to give us all cardiac problems. But I digress...I don't know which company makes that "Red Tape", but I hope they go out of business soon..but the "Gubber-Mint" might just bail them out, huh??