You are right. What gets me concerned is when we get into discussions where certain "hot button" individuals names are used and the discussion  subject matter seems to become irrelevent. It is totally baffling to me how Al Gore's name can come up in a discussion of current exchange rates! He lost the election 7 years ago!

One of the very real problems we face no matter which side of the aisle you sit on is that there is increasingly a very small portion of the federal budget which can be controlled to balance the books on the spending side.

Interest payments on the national debt go up exponentially as more money is borrowed top pay interest on old debt....its like taking out a credit card to pay the interest on another credit card. But that interest money has to be paid.

Sooner or later, and I think it is sooner, the folks financing that debt get concerned and adjustment of the value of the US dollar compapred to other currencies is how that concern becomes apparent. Where does it stop? Well the value of the doillar can continue to go down until prices on imported items like oil reach levels where we as a nation have to do something. And there is only so much that can be cut.  We have to feel sorry for the next president of the US regardless of which side of the aisle they come from. In fact they will have to probably do both at some point - cut spending AND increase taxes.  We have been living off borrowed money that our kids will have repay. The alternatives are not very attractive.  

Sure the government can just print more money but you know what happens then and the fed must keep inflation under control. 

To get back to the original ag question, we in agriculture are fortunate to be producing ag products which have international value beyond their dollar value. That is one (one several) reasons that commodity prices are increasing in US dollars - but commodities are NOT really rising that much if you look at them in, say, Euros.  It would be interesting to see how the rising fertilizer (N largely coming from oil and natural gas) prices look in Euros. The dollar exchange rates will have to find a level to steady at so people can conduct business. The most obvious place we will see the result is at the gas pump.

Ag commodities will continue to rise if the dollar goes down, independent of the usual weather etc factors. But so will all the inputs - including land rents required to produce them.

The IPTV Market to Market program really got me thinking of this same topic last Friday. Thanks to the folks who do an excellent job putting that on.

Point well taken.

Jim at Dawn