| Give commodity markets credit: they are anything but boring. Between 2000 and 2011 broad indices of commodity prices tripled, easily outpacing global growth and stoking Malthusian hysteria. Jeremy Grantham, a wealthy financier, noted at the time that it was not so much “peak oil” that would undo humanity but “peak everything else”.
Yet since then commodity prices have slumped by about a quarter, and roughly 11% since June alone. That is not, however, an unalloyed good. This reversal of fortunes, naturally, is much better news for net importers of resources than for net exporters. For consumers, a drop in the price of natural gas or rice is like a tax cut: it leaves households with more disposable income...............................................Full Article: Source
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