Global Business; The Interest Rates; Agricultural Commodities Secular Bull Market; Expansion

MWF (Monday) Briefing:

Contraction and Expansion.  American business looks to expand globally to offset falling profits in the U.S. At the same time, with the continued weakness of the dollar and talks of interest rate hikes everywhere outside of the U.S., American assets look cheaper and cheaper to foreign investors and speculators even as commodities do the upward spiral. 

Agricultural commodities, besides experience nature related problems, floods, vermin, fungi, disease, is seeing demand outstrip supply. Overlap that with the very weak dollar, shortages in fertilzer supply (potash, phosphorus), and the exhorbitant cost of producing nitrogen.

• Paul Krugman of the NYT makes an anecdotal argument that it can't be speculation with oil as witch hunters in the U.S. Congress were angling.NYT

• NYSE Buys 25% of Qatar Stock Market to become truly global. NYT

• "We're toast if we don't get on a very different path," Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute of Space Sciences who is sometimes called the godfather of global warming science, told The Associated Press. "This is the last chance."  Wired

• Bollywood and Hollywood. Reliance Big Entertainment of India is injecting $500-$600 million into Spielberg's Dreamworks SKG.  Time