just around the corner? No and no. What the commodity markets are telling us is that we're living in a finite world,... the rapid growth of emerging economies is placing pressure on limited supplies of raw materials, pushing up their prices. And America is, for the most part, just a bystander in this story. ... This doesn't necessarily ... reject the notion that speculation is playing some role... But the fact that world economic recovery has also brought a recovery in commodity prices strongly suggests that recent price fluctuations mainly reflect fundamental factors. What about commodity prices as a harbinger of inflation? Many commentators on the right have been predicting for years that the Federal Reserve ... is setting us up for severe inflation. ... Yet inflation has remained low. What's an inflation worrier to do? One response has been a proliferation of conspiracy theories, of claims that the government is suppressing the truth about rising prices. But lately many on the right have seized on rising commodity prices as proof that they were right all along, as a sign of high overall inflation just around the corner. You do have to wonder what these people were thinking two years ago, when raw material prices were plunging. If the commodity-price rise of the past six months heralds runaway inflation, why didn't the 50 percent decline in the second half of 2008 herald runaway deflation? Inconsistency aside, however, the big problem with those blaming the Fed ... is that ... commodity