During the early part of 1998, as Russia staggered through falling commodity prices, fiscal problems and political chaos, Carlson had largely stayed away.

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And while that holds a host of problems for things like commodity demand, China is still building.

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Meanwhile, the economic problems are being confirmed by commodity prices, including the price of oil.

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The earnings miss was just due to short-term commodity price issues and not long-term problems with the company or its businesses.

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It can cause the price of that important agricultural commodity to rise or fall almost as much as weather problems in the midwest.

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With an economy in the pan, and global commodity prices at historic highs (not to mention the political problems of policing an oil-dependent world) natural resource discovery is an inviting systemic innovation.

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These headwinds include a stubbornly high unemployment rate, a disturbing trend of increasing jobless claims, elevated commodity prices, a lackluster residential real estate and increasing sovereign debt problems overseas and, as previously discussed, on our homeland.

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The central bank action has supported commodity prices in general as the banks will likely keep monetary policy accommodative as countries need to work through debt problems.

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