If wheat is bid up like a casino chip, we will see hyperinflation by summer 2008, and that inflated gold value may be needed to buy food by this time next year! I seriously hope The IMF , NATO or some global org takes it upon themselves to take charge of the global monetary system and do little things like keep food (wheat) from being a speculative commodity that fuels hyper-inflation….like Monday!

There is a 62 percent chance the Bank of Japan will cut its 0.5 percent benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points by December, according to calculations by JPMorgan Chase & Co using interest-rate swaps. The odds were 28 percent a week ago.

Yes, the Nikkei and the yen generally move inversely. There has been very little discussion of the fact that while Japan’s domestic economy has been flagging, its export sector is robust, in large measure due to the weak yen. And it’s also not widely publicized that Japanese companies have a lot of manufacturing capacity in China. So I’ve been skeptical of the “Japan is a basket” case story its government has been perpetuating. It’s a useful fiction that keeps us from going after them for their weak currency and their huge trade surpluses, although it finally appears that the weak currency is taking care of itself.

The yen’s strength, which hurts Japan’s vital exporters by making their products more expensive abroad, has also helped push Japanese stocks lower. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was down more than 4 percent Monday.