The business of climate change which has been a political football till date is getting serious with natural calamities and freak weather striking almost half the world during the end of the year. Another worrying trend has been the commodity and metal prices that have spurted during the year end by well over 30% without significant rise in the actual consumption or the real time demand .
Tropical Queensland's worst floods that made over 200,000 homeless in 22 cities of north east Australia and devastated crops and coal mines after the heaviest rainfall have been ominous .The Australian Government also warned of severe heat wave and raging bush fires in Victoria and Southern Australia. Meanwhile a new storm was brewing off the coast of mineral-rich Western Australia as oil companies stopped offshore drilling following forecasts of hurricanes from the South Pacific. Europe, China and North America were in grip of unprecedented cold weather with snow storms even lashing the Mediterranean south Europe of Greece and Spain and Beijing being covered under 20 feet snow.
Prices of commodities spurted during 2010 due to speculative pressure and Quantitative Easing by the US Federal Reserve that will eventually add $600 billion liquidity to the global markets. The full impact of this excess liquidity will be felt during the second quarter of 2011 when sharp price rise will bring political instability in many countries including US. Since the commodity trading hub is in London and not in the US
there will be great difficulty in regulating the markets as Britain has always taken a contrary view to regulation and the FSA and the British Government has a very poor record as compared to US market regulators.
No comments:
Post a Comment