Now that the U.S. harvest is over Chicago grain traders have turned their attention to South America where farmers are busy planting corn and soybeans.
    Argentina and Brazil toppled the United States a few years ago as the top exporters of soybeans, representing 49 percent of the world's soy trade this past season versus the United States at 40 percent. But Brazilian plantings are expected to be down this year as credit pressures are deterring farmers from planting more.
    The world grain trade is counting on South America to produce big soybean crops this season -- taking up some of the slack from the United States where soy stocks have slipped to historically low levels given strong demand and a short crop in 2007.
    Dryness in Argentina raised crop concerns and underpinned Chicago Board of Trade grain and oilseed prices early last week. But as the No. 3 soy exporter saw scattered rains, worries eased and the focus turned to southern Brazil.
    Parana and Rio Grande do Sul, the second and third largest Brazilian soy states, are the driest. Both are expected to see light, scattered showers by Tuesday.
    "That rain next week is going to be an important event," said Mike Palmerino, DTN Meteorlogix forecaster.
    While South America needs rain, Australia is for once struggling with too much. Farmers are trying to put away this year's wheat crop but constant rains have stalled their efforts and likely reducing the quality of the crop.
    More poor quality wheat will only add to already big global supplies of feed wheat, which is cutting into demand for U.S. corn. Export sales of corn have been under 500,000 tonnes for the past five weeks and off to their slowest pace since 2002. U.S. corn exports last season totaled nearly 62 million tonnes, or 65 percent of the global corn exports.
    The final U.S. government supply-and-demand report of the year will be issued on Dec. 11, with many analysts expecting USDA to shave its 2008/09 U.S. corn export figure to reflect the slowed pace. But traders will have to wait until USDA's Jan. 12 crop report for final 2008 production numbers.
    While the supply outlook is having a little more play on CBOT prices, the global economic slowdown is hurting employment and food spending and will undoubtedly continue to loom over the markets.
    Grains and oilseeds have traded sideways for weeks as investors moved to the sidelines, unwilling to take on fresh  positions. Cash grain traders are also still finding it tough to finance purchases from farmers amid continued tight or frozen credit markets.
    "We are in the de-leveraging process," one CBOT cash-connected trader said this week. "No reason to think that will change before year's end, especially as the markets move into their annual slow holiday period."
    But grain traders in the coming week will still keep an eye on Wall Street for economic signs.
    Weekend retail sales following the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, typically the biggest shopping period of the year will be one key economic indicator. More critical will be the government's November jobs report, issued on Friday, which will likely provide more evidence of a deep economic downturn and possible additional interest rate cuts, which grain traders always welcome.

PHOTO: U.S. corn harvest wrapped up for 2008. Corn field in southern Wisconsin taken Nov. 29 by Chris Stebbins.

Los Angeles shoppers weren't in much of a splurging mood, except when it came to buying dolls and doll clothes at American Girl. The Grove shopping center is home to one of six American Girl stores in the United States and parents said its dolls are on every girl's wish list. Here's what we captured on camera:

Luhrmann offers "Australia" as an escape from fear

He was nominated for a best picture and best director Academy Award for "Moulin Rouge!," which also starred Kidman, while his wife, Catherine Martin, was nominated for a best art direction-set direction for "Romeo + Juliet" and then went on to win two Oscars for her work on "Moulin Rouge!"-

I noticed that this article states that director Baz Luhrmann was nominated for both a best picture and best director Academy Award for "Moulin Rouge!"

However, while he was nominated for best picture, Baz Luhrmann did not receive a best director nomination. Other than that correction, I very much enjoyed this article.

Amanda M.

Right. We corrected: GBU Editor

"Moulin Rouge" actress Nicole Kidman in 2002 file photo. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

Join the Facebook Good, Bad, Ugly Blog Network

Readers ask me all the time, "Bob, you've delivered pizzas to a lot of rich people's houses. So what kind of furniture do they have?"

Well, take a peek at a Millionaire Fair, where folks with too much money go to spend it.

Rich people LOVE this chair, and you can see why. It allows up to one person to enjoy DVDs in a home entertainment center, and that looks to be just about the right number for this goober here.

Or, you can buy eight of them to use as dining room chairs, assuming your table is 50 feet long. But be careful. Pulling out the chair for the woman next to you may lead to unwanted hernias.

Also, you could get some dirty looks when you say, "Hey, Buddy, you mind running over here with that tub of margarine?"

Millionaire fair slideshow

Embrace the average. Join the Oddly Enough blog network

Man sits on a designer chair by Raw Design at the Millionaire Fair in Moscow, November 27, 2008. REUTERS /Alexander Natruskin

More stuff from Oddly Enough

On Chicago's State Street, I found these dinosaurs creeping up on a Christmas tree at the FAO Schwarz section inside Macy's:

Moving on to an empty TV section in Sears:

At Sears, Christmas decorations were already 60 percent off:

And at Charlotte Russe, more discounts:

As we talk to more and more shoppers over the holiday weekend, the high level of personal anxiety over the future of the economy comes into focus. We have read, and written about, the numbers on consumer confidence and retail sales performance, but these quotes give us a more individual view. Below are some of the ways in which people described for reporters Aarthi Sivaraman and Ben Klayman their fears, or even a change in attitude, regarding money, jobs and family.

Jersey City, New Jersey:

Rose Fernandez, law enforcement worker:
"Yesterday I received my social security savings (statement) and looked at it. I'm concerned. I'm going to put more away. 
    
Rose said her extended family was only living according to their means and were careful not to spend anything extra. She recently came out of $6,000 in credit card debt herself.

"It's come to a point now when we are giving only to the kids. ... It's the way things have been. We have a meal together, laugh, joke and watch the little ones open gifts. When we grew up we had food, a home, a roof over our heads and a warm bed. That's rich. In that sense, we are still rich now."

Janice Peters, social worker: 
"There really isn't that much money. Based on the news, it's just going to get worse. ... I've been thinking about the present and the future. But I feel much worse about the future."
    
Janice said she has between $4,000 and $6,000 in credit card debt at this point. 

Heidi Hickman, marketing manager for USA Today:
"I have a lot of things on my mind. I got a notice there are going to be layoffs in my department. ... It's making me stop right now and not do anything until I find out. That's going to tell me a lot about what's going to happen and if I should halt spending altogether or not."
    

Washington DC:

Judith Aplon, 70, visiting from Boulder, Colorado: 
"I intend to do little or no shopping ... because I'm terrified about the economic situation and most of us don't need anything else. ... I've watched 43 percent of my retirement disappear and I don't know what's going to happen in the ensuing months and years so I'm being very cautious."
 
"I've never been much of a consumer and I have found the consumerism of the country is appalling. It has reached its point of break."
 
"We talk about other countries, where they have religious battles; in India for instance between Hindus and Muslims. It's just the same here, except our religion is 'buy, buy, buy.'" 
  
(Photos/Reuters)

Every city has it's way of dealing with recession. In Brooklyn, where "going out of business" sales may seem like a marketing tactic employed in good and bad times, it looks like shops are dead serious now. And they are getting more creative. We liked the VIP gift bag and the one-year deferred financing, photos via our own Martinne Geller:

[CROSSPOST blog: 27 post: 1009]

Original Post Text:

The language is deliberate, the signals unmistakable: India is turning up the heat on Pakistan for the Mumbai attacks that have  killed at least 195 people, and there is no knowing where this downward spiral in ties between the uneasy neighbours will end.

Beginning with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's warning that a cost will have to be paid by neighbouring nations that allow militants to operate,  to Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee's direct call to Islamabad to "dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism", there is a sharp, cold edge to the tone that you can't miss even factoring in the immediate anger and sense of outrage the attacks have evoked  across India.

Then the signs: Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi in India on a previously scheduled visit to review the peace process packing his bags and heading home because Indian political leaders cancelled meetings with him following the attacks.

We have been here before, for sure. A 2001 attack on the Indian parliament, for which like the Mumbai attacks, the  Lashkar-i-Taiba was blamed, triggered a set of measures by New Delhi including breaking sporting and cultural links, downgrading diplomatic relations, and the deployment of the military in full combat readiness all along the Pakistan border.

That military stand-off ended six months later after considerable diplomatic pressure from the United States, Britain and other powers worried about two nuclear-armed nations on the brink of war.

So what are the options for Delhi this time around, beyond striking a menacing posture to force Pakistan to go after elements there which it believes are responsible for violence in India?

It can't risk another extended military deployment - you can only do that sort of "coercive diplomacy" once a while for it to be taken seriously. Limited military strikes on the militant camps that New Delhi says exist across the border?

The New York Times raised that possibility following what were arguably the most audacious attacks India has ever seen even its violent history as a free nation.  It's hard to tell, especially now that those training camps don't exist so openly, given the Americans' scrutiny of Pakistan. And India has always been reluctant to cross the Line of Control dividing Kashmir, fearing this would undermine its status as a de facto border and basis for a permament settlement to the Kashmir dispute.

Ending a five-year ceasefire along the Line of Control, which has in recent months come under strain? Or a freezing of ties, turning back the four year-peace process which if nothing else ensured the foes kept talking?

All bets are obviously off . The Times said American military and intelligence officials believed there was mounting evidence that the Lashkar--Taiba was most likely involved in the Mumbai attack. That can only strengthen New Delhi's case as it confronts Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence with evidence when its representative arrives in India to discuss the attacks, itself an extraordinary move.

Islamabad had earlier agreed to send the head of the ISI to India but it later lowered that to a representative.
.

The language is deliberate, the signals unmistakable: India is turning up the heat on Pakistan for the Mumbai attacks that have  killed at least 195 people, and there is no knowing where this downward spiral in ties between the uneasy neighbours will end.

Beginning with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's warning that a cost will have to be paid by neighbouring nations that allow militants to operate,  to Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee's direct call to Islamabad to "dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism", there is a sharp, cold edge to the tone that you can't miss even factoring in the immediate anger and sense of outrage the attacks have evoked  across India.

Then the signs: Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi in India on a previously scheduled visit to review the peace process packing his bags and heading home because Indian political leaders cancelled meetings with him following the attacks.

We have been here before, for sure. A 2001 attack on the Indian parliament, for which like the Mumbai attacks, the  Lashkar-i-Taiba was blamed, triggered a set of measures by New Delhi including breaking sporting and cultural links, downgrading diplomatic relations, and the deployment of the military in full combat readiness all along the Pakistan border.

That military stand-off ended six months later after considerable diplomatic pressure from the United States, Britain and other powers worried about two nuclear-armed nations on the brink of war.

So what are the options for Delhi this time around, beyond striking a menacing posture to force Pakistan to go after elements there which it believes are responsible for violence in India?

It can't risk another extended military deployment - you can only do that sort of "coercive diplomacy" once a while for it to be taken seriously. Limited military strikes on the militant camps that New Delhi says exist across the border?

The New York Times raised that possibility following what were arguably the most audacious attacks India has ever seen even its violent history as a free nation.  It's hard to tell, especially now that those training camps don't exist so openly, given the Americans' scrutiny of Pakistan. And India has always been reluctant to cross the Line of Control dividing Kashmir, fearing this would undermine its status as a de facto border and basis for a permament settlement to the Kashmir dispute.

Ending a five-year ceasefire along the Line of Control, which has in recent months come under strain? Or a freezing of ties, turning back the four year-peace process which if nothing else ensured the foes kept talking?

All bets are obviously off . The Times said American military and intelligence officials believed there was mounting evidence that the Lashkar--Taiba was most likely involved in the Mumbai attack. That can only strengthen New Delhi's case as it confronts Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence with evidence when its representative arrives in India to discuss the attacks, itself an extraordinary move.

Islamabad had earlier agreed to send the head of the ISI to India but it later lowered that to a representative.
.

Blog Guy, I continue to read all of your posts about photojournalism. I've mastered your stuff on shooting groups, luggage, shoes, handshakes and stairs. What else makes for great news photography?

Well, now we're into the stuff that only a handful of the best shooters know, but I think you're ready.

I'm SO excited! Hit me!

Start snapping politicians getting out of limos.

You're serious?

I'm always serious. Look, readers want to know if politicians use the door, or wriggle out through the sunroof or what. Plus, when you have enough folks coming through car doors, you can do a combo, like this one showing every man in Germany.

Awesome! It kind of looks like the opening credits of that TV show "Entourage."

Yeah? Then they stole it from ME!

Celebrate absurdity! Join the Oddly Enough blog network!

Then-candidate Barack Obama steps out of his car alongside secret service agents in Canton, Ohio, October 27, 2008. REUTERS/Jason Reed

Combination photo shows German state prime ministers of the conservative Christian Democratic Union party arriving in Berlin, November 26, 2008.  REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

More stuff from Oddly Enough