I attended the 12th Annual Land Investment Expo on January 25th in Des Moines Iowa. The event was sponsored by Peoples Company, a diversified real estate company based in Des Moines.
The morning session started with economist Dennis Gartman author of “The Gartman Letter”. His message was varied but mostly centered on the US Government and their actions and place in the world. A couple of fascinating stats to take away from the talk: there are 11 (soon to be 12) super aircraft carriers in the world. The United States has them all. See the difference below. Google it!
Gartman’s point was that the naval superiority was one of the main reasons for the US dollar to be the world currency.
The second point from Gartman that I didn’t necessarily agree with was that Government deficits have existed since the 70’s and they don’t matter. This concept that the politicians in Washington have held as gospel for years is in his words “not something to be concerned about”. Worry about GDP, interest rates and the economy.
The final point from Gartman concerned world oil production. As a young child in the 70’s, I remember the gas lines and the whole hysteria that we were using oil at an alarming rate. Or we would run out of the world oil reserves by 2030, or we would essentially become subservient to the Middle East as they held the majority of the oil in the world. Good news everyone. On any given day now the United State is the number #1 producer of oil in the world. We are self-sufficient. And we are using new techniques to both find and extract oil from our reserves.
What does any of this have to do with agriculture? Everything! This was just a few high points from the first speaker of what was a very thought provoking day!