When it falls in value the nominal price of commodities zooms up, with the poor being hurt disproportionately.
This may have a negative impact on the price of commodities, including gold.
Over the past few years, the price of commodities has fluctuated significantly.
FORBES: Use This Currency To Short Oil, Another One To Buy Gold
Of course the price of commodities has been incredible with the Reuters-Jefferies CRB Index higher by 35.35% since the low on May 25th 2010.
FORBES: China Tackles Inflation. Food Prices Rising. Good For Monsanto & Syngenta.
All that notwithstanding, argues Francisco Blanch, of Merrill Lynch, as long as economic growth holds up in the developing world, the price of commodities should too.
Moreover, the rise in the price of commodities also reflects the weakness in the dollar: these rises look much less impressive when quoted in euros or yen.
ECONOMIST: Economics focus: Heading for a fall, by fiat? | The
The standard economic argument against Fairtrade goes like this: the low price of commodities such as coffee is due to overproduction, and ought to be a signal to producers to switch to growing other crops.
"The economy has driven the price of commodities up in the last five years, including the price of elite cattle, " says Joe Epperly from the North American Limousin Foundation, which monitors sales of the highly-muscled Limousin breed.
The benefit of this is that you gain exposure to commodities, the long-term trends, because ultimately these contracts will roll over, without having to be right short-term on the spot price of commodities, which is an extremely difficult game.
The abandoning of International Monetary Fund and World Bank economic policies which Mr Mugabe flirted with for 10 years, has already seen the re-introduction of price controls of basic commodities.
If the market price of these commodities goes up, the jeweller makes money on his stock.
But a fall in the price of farm commodities may ease the pressure on the forest.
The courts have tried to fix the price of staple commodities such as petrol and sugar, to public cheers.
During Mr. Zardari's administration, the Supreme Court has played an activist role, making decisions normally reserved for government, including setting the price of basic commodities.
Mr Tombini said inflation was boosted in the second half of 2012 by several "shocks", such as a rise in the price of agricultural commodities.
But there are many economists who fear that what is happening to the price of these commodities could have a seriously destabilising effect on the world economy.
There used to be clearly defined battle lines between pessimists like Mr Ehrlich and optimists like Julian Simon (an economist who bet Mr Ehrlich that the inflation-adjusted price of a basket of commodities would not rise over time because of growing populations).
The price of oil and other commodities would have risen because of the growing demand generated by the booming global economy.
It took the government to step in last year and get things moving by giving potential home-buyers cash to make down-payments on homes, cash for clunkers to buy new automobiles, cash to financial firms that was used for trading to bid up the price of stocks and commodities.
FORBES: Lots Of Cash Not Being Spent Will Choke Off The Recovery
Costs are rising for companies as the price of oil and other commodities goes up.
And another 17 have sought to cash in on the high price of metals and other commodities.
Businesses could plan without worries about inflation or deflation, or big swings in the price of oil and other commodities.
Despite the rapidly rising prices, there was no shortage of crude oil to justify the run up of price in the commodities pits.
Part of the problem is weakening growth in exports, driven largely by a recent drop in the price of coal and other commodities that Indonesia sells overseas.
Then again, as the Bank of England has reminded us, it has often been "special factors" pushing inflation up in the past few years - particularly, big changes in the price of oil and other commodities.
Why the price of labour responds less to demand than that of other commodities is a bit of a puzzle.
The markets react to this threat by bidding up the price of gold, and other commodities (like oil) that can serve as inflation hedges.
FORBES: When the Fed Makes Headlines, You Know We're In Trouble
China has been known to acquire large positions of commodities during steep price declines.
In the pantheon of commodities with nice price runs over the past several years, gold has a special shine.
However, much of this was simply the result of broad price declines in the commodities themselves in recent months, Brooks said.
应用推荐