jkoenig's blog

I found an article from Reuters that telling the story of a group of legislators introducing a bill to exit NAFTA.  On the surface you might think this would have some direct impact however at point zero much of the trade would likely continue but with a resurrected layer of tariffs and duties (costs in some cases and lost opportunity in other cases).  The unintended concequences would be that protectionistic move would preciptate other responses.  My initial response is that the message this sends is more important than the affect.  But the message will damage our relat

DTN's man on the ground in South America is reporting 50% compete in Mato Grosso and maybe a bit of disappointment in the yields of the later planted soybeans.  Today's export sales report revealed China's conspicuous slow-down in export purchases which makes sense since the soybean supply is likely to have filled the export channels. 

DTN's South American correspondent highlights the fact that soybean prices in the center of Mato Grosso represent losses for producers.  From the US perspective this seems hard to comprehend since prices here could decline 50% before producers would be faced with a similar situation. 

Paul spoke at the International Sugar Colloquium on Monday.  Here's a link to his presentation.  If I find that there is a video recording I will share that too.

MSPowerPoint
http://www.connellcommodities.com/files/2010_Sugar_Colloquium.ppsx

Adobe Acrobat
http://www.connellcommodities.com/files/2010_Sugar_Colloquium.pdf

Bunge's announcement to close Danville Illinois plant, along with the others makes a couple statements to buyers that are worth understanding.  First the very tight soybean situation propagated by the historic export program would force some crushers to purchase soybeans and sell products in a supply vacuum.  This is very difficult for a processor who's facility is design to run 24/7.  Part of this is made by the poor production in certain parts of the country.  So Bunge may have been in a situation where it was more profitable to back out of the locations where there is

The Financial Times published an opinion yesterday that makes poignant argument suggesting the debt crisis in the US is only a matter of a short time away.  An interesting contrast in the article was the idea that the Greek crisis was created with debt equal to 13% of GDP while by the administrations on, probably rosy, estimates our debt will equal 100% of GDP in two short years.  And the cap to this was the quote from our own CBO that the US would never have a balanced budget again. 

I see in the NYPOST today that the issue of assumed deaths in the BLS black box will be addressed some revisions coming in early 2010.  According to the author, John Crudele, the BLS will subtract 824,000 jobs in early 2010 revisions.  The article goes into some detail about the issue. 

Read at NYPOST.com
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/was_birther_before_obama_certificate_4bsZ9jZeonM7vHZCklg3aP

The WSJ published a follow up piece on the EPA rulling.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126020179812780059.html

Jim Grant discusses the bear case in the WSJ today.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704342404574575761660481996.html

The EPA announcement is now finished.  They Lisa discussed a car program beginning Jan 1 and the carbon limitation for any business will be 25,000 tons (the average home consumes 4.5 tons) beginning in 2011. 

This is going to hurt ...

Carbon Calculations reference
http://www.adirondackcouncil.org/Carbon%20calculations.pdf

According to Reuters the EPA CO2 endangerment announcement is coming out at 1.15pm.