As I sit here, studying my screen as it scrolls through the various commodities I either trade or simply follow out of professional curiosity, I find myself once again staring at a sea of green – meaning the markets are positive for the day. Cash corn, for example, is trading at $7.97 per bushel. This is a run-up of 63% since January 2021. Cash wheat is trading $10.63 per bushel, up 73% since January 2021. Soybeans are up 43%. And so on. This is just in 18 months. The rise in commodities prices, especially food and energy, has been epic since their nadir during the Covid lockdowns went into full force around April 2020.
These flashing digits on my screen represent not just data points but very real and deep pain for hundreds of millions around the world. At least those without the wherewithal to leverage access to an important father to ink million-dollar “consulting” deals with Ukrainian oligarchs or Chinese despots, or the ability to enact market-moving laws while making personal insider stock trades so presciently timed they’d make Jesse Livermore salivate. Indeed, every uptick I see tells me someone on a fixed income or desperately trying to hang on to middle-class status, let alone half the world’s population who earn less than $10,000 per year, faces a crisis not seen since the advent of the postmodern age. And now we are starting to hear a frightening phrase bantered about not just in the media but also in the halls of power: food shortages.
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