imports/exports
Worst Financial Crisis in Decades and the Usual Remedies Are Unavailable
(January 6, 2009) - No matter where one turns there is news about the economic crisis. What was once thought to be an event confined to some bad mortgages has now engulfed most of the world.
Japan is in crisis, Toyota has announced its first quarterly loss in seven decades; China is wondering how to maintain its middle class now that export orders have slowed; and the US reels from one set of bad numbers, increasing unemployment figures, to another, an increase in the number of mortgage foreclosures.
So far farmers have escaped the worst of it. While crop prices are half of their mid-summer highs, they are still nearly double the farm gate prices of a few years ago. Some farmers got burned with advance purchases of fertilizer and seeds, while others saw their forward contracts of corn sales vanish as some ethanol plants went under, but overall crop agriculture is in a better position than it was in 1999 and 2000.