Cotton Supply

[JEast]

We seldom talk about commodities (except for the Great White North Gold Bugs), but found the comments on cotton supplies in a recent Bloomberg article interesting.

 

Global cotton output will exceed demand for a fourth year, with global stockpiles on July 31 reaching 97.6 million bales, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates. That’s almost double the amount held in 2011 and is enough to make 16 t-shirts for every person on the planet, industry data show.

 

Maybe a typo but that is one heck of a lot of shirts!  The Reverend Malthus must be rolling in his grave.

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-04/cotton-crop-expanding-after-corn-slump-spurs-switch-commodities.html

 

 

Cheers

JEast

[xtreeq]

Interesting,

 

Thanks for posting

[bobp]

Chocolate covered cotton anyone? From Catch 22. Milo Minderbinder buys up the Egyptian cotton supply and the price plummets.  With no market for his cotton he produces chocolate covered cotton he tries out on Yossarian. Later he contracts with the Germans to bomb his own American bases to cover the losses.

 

Great book.

[tyska]

I would think this would have to weigh heavy on dissolving pulp prices and demand.

[alertmeipp]

not all cotton are equal.

China holds tons of inventory but most gender no interest coz of quality issues.

[tyska]

not all cotton are equal.

China holds tons of inventory but most gender no interest coz of quality issues.

 

Is it really tons of inventory, if no one wants it. Isn't that considered a landfill then.:>) How many genders are there that most  aren't interested. :>)

[yadayada]

Wasn't there some guy who cornered the cotton market some time ago? But then decided to not squeeze it dry because it would hurt the US economy badly at that particular time. Remember reading some quote like that, but not sure if it was true.

[longtermdave]

NPR's Planet Money had a good episode on cotton farming and how cotton is not all the same:

http://apps.npr.org/tshirt/#/cotton

Actually, the whole series is good.