[DesertCat]

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I highly recommend Rogers' books though. Even if you aren't into investing, his books are very entertaining. Particularly Investment Biker and Adventure Capitalist. Warren Buffett once called Rogers the finest Securities Analysis professor in the country.

Interesting facts:

Did you know that only one lead mine has been opened in the world in the last 25 years?

Or that over the past couple of decades Columbians have been tearing out their coffee trees to plant coca plants, the source of cocaine?

Or that with sugar prices at record lows and oil prices at record highs that sugar can be profitably converted into gasahol?

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I like Jim Rogers, he was a hell of a security analyst. But I think he's gotten a little nutty over commodities.

The facts you cite support that commodity prices decline over time. We get more efficient at pulling them out of existing mines, or farming certain crops gets so efficient farmers are forced to look for other opportunities.

And world sugar prices have gotten really cheap. I'm pretty sure the U.S. doesn't benefit from low world sugar prices, because our tariff system keeps domestic prices high.

Our prices for imported commodities are rising due to our huge budget deficits driving the dollar lower. That's a big reason why oil is $56 a barrel, if the Euro was still worth 86 cents U.S. oil prices would probably be about 30% lower.