Markets whipsawed yesterday after bad US initial jobless claims and Philly Fed data, with stocks down and bond yields also lower, as was the US dollar. Commodities were a mixed picture, however, and oil prices rose around 5% again from its intra-day low to close over $111. Referring again to a bond yields/commodities matrix, that suggested the Fed falling behind the curve, not getting ahead of it, in crushing demand to fit restrained supply. Lo and behold, we then got the headline, 'Fed's George Says 'Rough' Market Won't Alter Fed Tightening Plan'. So, how far down can bond yields go when actual Fed Funds are still going up? Likewise, how far down can the US dollar go when the 1-month Treasury bill is 41bps, and trending lower, when Fed Funds is 100bps, and trending higher – which screams 'Eurodollar collateral shortage'?

As I tried to flag yesterday, those (valid) questions are desperately small beer in the face of what now confronts us globally – or at they should be. That is because The Economist's front page and main story this week is 'The coming food catastrophe', replete with a graphic of sheaves of wheat made up of human skulls. The summary concludes,

"The high cost of staple foods has already raised the number of people who cannot be sure of getting enough to eat by 440m, to 1.6bn. Nearly 250m are on the brink of famine. If, as is likely, the war drags on and supplies from Russia and Ukraine are limited, hundreds of millions more people could fall into poverty. Political unrest will spread, children will be stunted, and people will starve."