In the global marketplace nothing seems to be more important then China. At least “that’s” what we are told.

There is no doubt that China has an impact on our commodities. Both the American Farm Bureau Federation and Farmer’s Union agree China will drive prices for corn, soybeans, wheat and livestock enough to create bumps in the marketplace big enough to turn profits into losses on a daily basis. But do they? Really?

I would submit that maybe OPEC has more control on things then we originally thought. I’m not an economist, nor a financial adviser but I learned at an early age the smell of dead critters in a fire! (Long story for another time).

Wall Street “experts” tell us to believe that the falling prices in oil somehow are way too bad for us to imagine or understand. They tell us that the American companies that found a new way to remove oil and gas with fracking somehow were not smart enough business men and women and maybe slept through ECON 101? Those same “experts” want us to believe that nobody talked to these companies about the concept of supply and demand.

So as more oil and gas is extracted from our country it puts more of that product on the global market, assuming everyone else is still producing that product at the same level (which they are) hoping to maintain a market share.

Are we to believe these new oil barons and tycoons expected $100 plus per barrel oil prices to maintain? Knowing that this glut of oil would be coming I guess they never expected the price of that commodity to fall? Crazy kids!

The same Wall Street “experts” are apologizing for the big mega banks who have been lending dollars to these new oil companies. Are we to believe that they looked past the fallen potential profits of these companies without understanding what these businesses were producing? Could it be that these mega banks screwed up again? Can you say Bailout?

The Wall Street shows, newspapers and various web sources are telling us that our stocks and money market accounts that hold our/your retirements funds are invested in, or have some position in, energy and banking or both. So oil drops – investments go down, and every business associated with them from pipelines to transportation.

We’re told about those brilliant mega banks whose stock is tanking because of their assistance in financing these failing companies.

So as we save big at the pump – consumers loose in their savings. Ugh!

The next thing that I have been reading and hearing is that those lovely OPEC nations who supposedly are losing with the decline in oil prices actually used decades of profits to buy American dollars, stocks, bonds and other investments that they started selling recently to make up for the loss in oil profits. Ugh!

We need to talk about the dollar because when the dollar strengthens, it makes American-made goods (which includes all of our farming commodities) more expensive and less competitive when compared to foreign-produced goods. This helps decrease U.S. exports, slowing economic growth. Ugh!

It also leads to lower oil prices, since oil is priced in dollars. Whenever the dollar strengthens, oil-producing countries can relax the price of oil, because their profit margins in their local currency aren’t affected.

So regardless of what we hear what I believe is driving the marketplace right now is oil. Not China, not their economy, not their imports or their exports.

It’s OPEC that continues to distribute our economy come Hell or High Gas Prices.

It’s the OPEC nations that have settled in now believing that the production boom here in the United States will not slow down. And they sit back waiting for those invested in this boom here to fail miserably.

While some within OPEC are calling for an emergency meeting due to the severe slump in prices, the core Middle East producers are fighting for market share, willing to battle each other, which will keep prices low at the pump…and drive the rest of our economy crazy.

We are all hoping and praying that the oil and gas boom here is America continues, if not for the price to consumers but for the energy independence we need. If as a country we can survive this OPEC hiccup, weening them from their control in our economy I believe we will be stronger, bigger and better energy providers and in better control of our own future.

Here’s seeing you, in Ohio Country!