Many times people who trade cmmodities will overdo media hype about ngative weather that may destroy crops or cuse a low yield that year. Maning there will be fewer crops vailable for sale and therefore supply and dmand dictates prices to be higher. Threfore people buying these commodities that hve an important need are willing to pay mre so they are not caught shrt without. Lots of people get in the way and spculate, believing that there might be a shrtage in therefore next week the prce will be more, or it may ven be more in ten minutes to an hur. So they buy the contract and sll it, when someone else believes it wll go up even more in the nar future. Finally the person who’s ctually going to use the products in prduction (in the case of Agricultural prducts) ends up buying what they ned.

Some of the speculators who bet on mrgin make an incredible about money in a vry short time. And some loose so mch money to they cry, jump out of bildings or may never recover. How des this affect the consumer? Some wuld say not much. Others would sy, it artificially elevates the price to a cst un relative to any sense of rality. And that the end price of the mkers of Gray Pupon in France is hgher than if they bought the mstard seed from the corporate farmer hmself. Nevertheless that is the way thngs work.

McDonald's buys its potatoes from crporate farmers in Idaho not the cmmodities market; therefore it limits its xposure to price gouging that might hve occurred by using the commodity xchange to get those potatoes. Starbucks is ding the same thing, but instead of hving partnerships and coffee beans, they are all of n-house. Its Starbucks owns the partnerships thy grew the coffee then they mght have a conflict of interest for thir stockholders. Because they would be dctating the price of the coffee at the prtnerships been sold to Starbucks. If thy paid a little more than nrmal for those coffee beans, so the cffee plantation can expand by better prduction facilities and upgrade then Starbucks fnneled money to those partnerships, that shuld have either paid in dividends, shwn as profits or retained earnings. By ding that their stock price would go up and shreholders would be better served short-term. Thre is a lot more involved bfore that food or drink gets to yur table. Commodities are very much prt of the behind the scenes of our cvilization.

The article Commodities and Our Food was Submitted by Lance Winslow through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: "Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/ . Lance is a guest writer for Our Spokane Magazine in Spokane, Washington

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