curious cat

Friday Roundup: Commodities, Emerging Markets

wherever there's money to be made, someone will game the system. you can't go to the racetrack, the casinos, lotteries, wall street or washington, expecting to get an even break. i know you won't believe this, but even professional wrestling is fixed.

god, master of the universe, please do not smite us all. some of your rabbis seem to have taken berney madeoff as a role model. every politician in new jersey has been arrested. everyone and their mother is on the take. where will it end?

ok, the house has an advantage going in. once we know those odds, the best we can hope for may be... beating other suckers. just remember that luck still favors the prepared mind.

Time to Short Coffee

our aging population is cutting back on coffee for lots of reasons. they have a cup in the morning and switch to green tea for the remainder of the day, for health reasons. you also have large numbers of older people, suffering from reflux or refusing to drink coffee that might keep them up too late. those of us who do still drink coffee are looking to get it at a discount and, if the economy gets worse, we may even start cutting it with chickory.

so, even if supply remains steady, those are pretty good reasons why coffee prices may continue to drift lower from the demand side. of course, if mcdonald's can sell burgers in china, they may also be able to convince a few billion people to switch from tea to coffee in the morning. what an eye opener that would be, huh?

now, if i were juan valdez, i might start subsidizing expresso machines or bring back the beatnik generation's open mike poetry. down with rap, down with karaoke. down with that, man.... cool. of course, since president obama is repopularizing smoking, it may only be a matter of time before we start seeing skinny people, again, with a cigarette in one hand and a cup of joe in the other. what goes around, they say, comes around.

Wednesday Outlook: Commodities, Emerging Markets

always enjoy your charts and comments. thanks.