economics

Wheat grows in cool, dry conditions. It can withstand frost, but rice can’t. Rice benefits from flooding, which kills competing weeds. Ponds can be formed and often contain fish, which creates protein for the farmers and fertilizer for the plants.

Commodities are goods used as inputs in the production of other goods and services. They form the bedrock upon which more complex products are made. While the US economy has moved to have a much larger share in the form of services, none of these services would be possible without the commodities. The pervasiveness of commodities as inputs makes

he greater the ability of the corporation to extract profits from a pool of nominal GDP relative to what is expected, the greater the beneficial impact on equity prices.

Capital cycle analysis, however, focuses on supply rather than demand. Supply prospects are far less uncertain than demand, and thus easier to forecast.

Now this has partially reversed. Western commodity traders’ power, at least when it comes to certain niche metals. Germany’s near-monopoly on tungsten smelting in the 1910s has been replaced by China’s monopoly on rare earth processing today. Konkel argues that “the Pax Americana was the resolution to the interwar raw materials problem.”

3. "Don't Fight the Train" Despite the long-term risks, Menon advises investors not to bet against this dynamic yet. As long as the CapEx spending continues to grow, the "profit juice" will keep flowing, keeping aggregate earnings per share (EPS) high and supporting the stock market. The signal to watch is not the level of spending, but the rate of

Needs arise in context—they are not context-free facts

When you search for needs or jobs in the way I outlined earlier, your underlying theory is that there is an objective set of hidden desires. You are looking for essences . You’re adopting the rationalist view that these inherent properties not only exist, but can be discovered and enumerated

It is solved precisely through the price system. It is solved through the constantly changing interrelationships of costs of production, prices and profits.

intangibles like patents and other forms of knowledge. And that’s around when companies started holding on to more cash