Buttonwood Material concerns

摘要

Subprime mortgages may have dominated the headlines in 2008 but high commodity prices played a significant part in the economic turmoil of that year. So it is striking to note that The Economist's all-items commodity index is now even higher than it was back then. Admittedly, our index excludes oil, which is more than $50 below its 2008 peak. Nevertheless, at around $90 a barrel, oil is high enough to prompt petrol prices of more than $3 a gallon in America and record pump prices in Britain, where tax plays a much larger role.