Even though a significant portion of the global economy is in the dumps, things have been amazingly busy around here the last couple of months. I have a couple of large projects going, been doing quite a lot of traveling and speaking at events, and then there’s the usual trying to keep up with the industry type things. So, as usual, the blog tends to suffer during these periods. I’m going to try to get caught up with some new thoughts/topics in the coming weeks, but unfortunately, this is one of those days that isn’t giving me a lot of time in the margins to do a lot of “deep thoughts” type blogging.

Since that’s the case, I’ll just throw out a few random thoughts and you can discuss amongst yourselves…

1) LNG is going to hit the US gas markets in a few months in a pretty big way (from Qatar, Russia, and others), and could very well establish the price ceiling for a long time. Even if crude runs up to $200/bbl, gas is going to languish below $8 for the foreseeable future.

2) The hedge funds are back. Our CommodityPoint hedge fund expert, Gary Vasey, indicates that more than a dozen commodity hedge funds have appeared in the last few weeks. This is a reversal of a trend that started with the financial meltdown and saw the erosion of that group of market players. Also noted this morning, Bloomberg is reporting that hedge funds had their best month last month, providing larger returns than any time since February of 2000.

3) Arthur Laffer wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that should make your hair stand on end. Be sure to check out the graphic. For us grown-ups that remember the Nixon wage and price freeze of the seventies, its not a particularly happy story. You can see it here.

4) Question: If you have a choice, which you do now, of buying either a GM product, designed by members of congress and being put together by what are essentially becoming civil servants, or a Toyota or Ford or BMW or whatever, what would you buy?

Cue the film…

5) I’ve got a bachelor party this weekend for some guy named Andrew. As best man, I’ve decided the theme of the evening will be “Hammer Pants”. Here’s a sneak preview of what the party will entail…

So, there you go. More “deep thoughts” soon.

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