Being a naive and silly person, I thought the Conservative government would be successful in its attempt to champion “marketing freedom” for grains, but not at all touch supply management. After all, methought, the West and the East are in almost separate worlds for economics and politics, so the forked-road strategy of the government – […] Read more
Tag Archives Commodities
A certain inevitability of the logic . . .
Eurotypes got one more fix, but it’s worn off
European and global stock market investors have been facing the European debt meltdown situation like a junkie thinking “just one fix” will cure his pain and problems. Every time the old fix begins to wear off, Eurobosses come up with another one. The problem is that each one is less effective, and the junk wears […] Read more
Truth in newspaper photos
How big was the crowd at the CWB rally I attended Friday on the western edge of Winnipeg? There were about 200-250 people there, I figured from rough counting I did. So I’d call that a medium deal. It wasn’t small. It wasn’t huge. About the same number of farmers were at the Versatile Tractor […] Read more
One for the historical record?
About an hour from now the Canadian Wheat Board Alliance, the Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board and the National Farmers Union will hold a pro-monopoly rally here in Winnipeg. I wonder what the point is, but I don’t mean that to sound like a challenge. I actually do wonder what they hope to achieve. […] Read more
China to the rescue?
It’s been quite a week of can-kicking in Europe! The trillion dollar bandaid Eurobosses announced this week has helped and continue a stock market rally the likes we haven’t seen in the S and P since 1974. So there we are – back to that reliving the 1970s feeling I keep writing about. The 1970s […] Read more
The Russians combines are coming!!! Actually, they’re already in Winnipeg
Today the 100,000th Versatile tractor rolls out of the Winnipeg factory where they’re built, and there’s a big series of events to celebrate the success of these machines. There’s going to be a lot of neat stuff to see and hear about, no doubt. But a big delight already was seeing four Russian […] Read more
Why Europe doesn’t work. Why Canada does
The biggest determinant of commodity price trends – including crop and meat price trends – over the next year will almost certainly be what happens to Europe and the Euro. Tomorrow – actually late tonight in Eurotime – their financial heavies will unveil – or not – the outline of a plan to save the […] Read more
First CWB. Then Supply Management? Not likely
Right now I’m listening to the Canadian restaurant association on CBC’s The Current calling for supply management to be ditched so that consumers won’t have to pay such high prices for things like dairy products, eggs, chickens. After all, the Canadian Wheat Board is being dismantled, so why not supply management too, is the argument. […] Read more
Not much conciliation there
I was pleasantly surprised yesterday when I looked at the Manitoba Speech From The Throne and found no threats of action against the hog industry. Perhaps, methought, the provincial government is going to back away from what has seemed to most in the agricultural industry to be a very antagonistic approach and one that hasn’t […] Read more
Some flesh on the Five Year Plan bones
(Follow me on Twitter: @EdWhiteMarkets) Today is Manitoba’s Speech from the Throne, so we should get some sense of the main foci of the re-elected Greg Selinger NDP government and any substantial farmer-oriented policies they are planning. All Throne Speeches are weak on details and strong on good-sounding words that are vague but enticing enough […] Read more
