French double whammy sinks farm commodities

**malta** · Oct 19, 2011, 15:00

I hadn't seen what had driven down commodities today.; There is no doubt the French banks are in trouble, they have loaned way too much money to their unproductive neighbors. I expect to hear the same sort of news from the British and German banks. As for the French disagreeing with the Germans, no surprise, the French have not agreed with anyone since we saved their sorry butts in WW1.

**Mjolnir** · Oct 19, 2011, 18:39

Dear France,
Need ve remind you vhat happened zee last
time ve had financial difficulties.
That is all.

Regards,

Germany
(reunited by ze way!)

**cottonpicken** · Oct 19, 2011, 20:07

Shear genius-what should i do with my gold?

**jensend** · Oct 20, 2011, 07:22

saw charts of ownership of commodities from a german newspaper (der spiegel?) the other day. hedgers have gone from the vast majority of holders down to 30% and it looks like the textbook bubble.

**jensend** · Oct 20, 2011, 07:25

here's a link to the article translated to english:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,783654,00.html

**liberty** · Oct 20, 2011, 07:54

Farm commodity prices have taken a hit lately, along with metals, oil, gold etc. not because there has suddenly been some substantial new discovery of these items, but because of the "flight to safety" phenomenon, whereby investors dump their commodity holdings and buy U.S. treasuries. It's going to take some time for investors to realize that this is not a "safe" option. What they perceive as "safe" are the debt holdings of a nation that is going bankrupt. The U.S. just appears to be going broke at a slower rate than Europe.

The real bubble is in U.S. debt, not commodities. That's why I'll take my lumps with commodities as opposed to playing the sucker's game with U.S. debt.

**cottonpicken** · Oct 20, 2011, 15:32

Exactly right.

Europe is so different because you have one currency
and a bunch of different bond markets,one at a time
they are popping,when the u s pops we are gone.

**theplowboy** · Oct 20, 2011, 21:36

I agree Liberty. USD is over valued with the deficits and debt they are generating. Could be a hell of a mess.

**sumdumguy** · Oct 21, 2011, 19:06

Canadian dollar going to pass the u.s. Again?

French double whammy sinks farm commodities