Via Foreign Affairs – Arctic Meltdown – Scott G. Borgerson. The opening up of Arctic means big for international shipping industry with huge political ramifications.

Black gold | Free exchange | Economist.com

the relationship between market uncertainty, currency fluctuations, and inflation. Economic weakness is pushing the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. This helps push the dollar downward, which contributes to increasing prices for dollar-denominated commodities. Flight to security also pushes up commodities, and it’s therefore no surprise that gold, silver, copper, oil, and all sorts of other things are shooting upward. (See this, too, for discussion of the connection between Fed policy, negative real interest rates, and commodities prices).