If one were to mindlessly extrapolate the present to the future, to say 2015, oil would go from $120 to $500 a barrel, corn would be at $15 a bushel and Dubai and Des Moines would be the two most powerful places in the world.

The Euro, which hit a record high last week at $1.60 to the dollar, would be the global currency and the Dali Lama would be at the center of all earthly and heavenly controversies.

Oil prices and food prices are now linked more than ever due to the cost to transport, the biofuel boom accelerated by attractive switching cost, and the growing demands for food and fuel in rapidly growing economies such as China and India. High corn prices results in farmers switching their feed stock to other alternatives such as wheat with the spillover affecting to many other commodities. The result is that in the past 18 months, dairy prices were up 80%, cooking oil up 50%, and soybeans up 40%. This provides the answer for the mystery of how fertilizer

I spent the last week on a pilgrimage to Dubai the financial Mecca of the Middle East, and Saudi Arabia – the home of Mecca – Mecca. The purpose of my sixteen thousand mile journey, literally half way around the globe, was to seek truth – were the outlandish facts and figures coming out of the Middle East real and sustainable or a bubble that was ready to burst into a mirage in the desert?

Dubai is part of the United Arab Emirates, seven countries that act as a confederation of states with a combined population of 2.5 million people and is the size of Maine. Located on the Arabian Peninsula, the UAE extends along part of the Gulf of Oman and the southern coast of the Persian Gulf. Most of the land is barren and sandy.

Originally, the land was inhabited by seafaring people who converted to Islam in the 7th Century. The United Arab Emirates Federation was forme

Starting Monday night, we will be hosting our Fourth Annual ThinkTomorrow~Today Conference in Half Moon Bay. ThinkTomorrow~Today brings over 500 leading venture capitalist, private companies and industry gurus together to discuss what the future might look like and where the big ideas are going to be found.

Over the three days, we will have 80 private companies presenting and panels on subjects as diverse as: how to invest in China, the future of mobile computing, and how the flat world is creating opportunities in the online education market. Keynotes include: Tony Perkins sharing perspective on what's hot; Ron Conway interviewing Marc Andreessen on Ning.com and the internet's future; "Coach of the Valley" Bill Campbell having a fireside chat with Jonathan Rosenberg on how innovation happens at Google (NASDAQ: GOOG, $573.20), and also the Coach will be having a discussion with John Doerr on investing in Green Technology and how the Babe Ruth of venture capital thinks ab

I'm not looking for sympathy, but writing a weekly market perspective piece is hard. Forget the time it takes, just coming up with fresh ideas that make sense is a cause of weekly anxiety that usually starts around Thursday. It's no wonder that one of my market strategist heroes, Barton Biggs, used to occasionally write a book report or he discussed his most recent mountain climbing expedition in his weekly market research for Morgan Stanley - he needed a break from writing what he thought was going on in the market or what stocks to buy or sell.

Given that I feel like I'm sounding like a broken record with market strategy - "BUY LEADING GROWTH STOCKS" - and I haven't compiled all my thoughts from last weeks ThinkTomorrow~Today conference, I'm going to go off the reservation a little bit and do a political forecast. I know polite people don't discuss religion or politics in public but this is a fascinating race with the consequences likely to have signific

Oil Shock - a barrel of Texas Tea sold for over $135 on Thursday.

Gas Shock - it cost me $80 to fill my 17 gallon tank this week.

Milk Shock - at $4 a gallon, it cost almost as much to put milk on my cereal as gas in my car.

Housing Shock - median home values have fallen over 10% in past year.

Bank Shock - banks don't want to lend you money, lend your company money, or even lend other banks money.

Big Daddy Bernanke, after dropping the discount rate 325 basis points since last September to 2%, said he does help out and with 4% inflation, we are going to figure it out for ourselves.

Any questions on why consumer confidence is at 28 year lows?

Stocks, which had been acting well since mid March in spite of all the negative noise, finally succumbed this week. The ThinkGrowth Index was off 4%, the worst of all U.S. Indices we track, followed by the Dow down 3.9%. The NASDAQ was off 3.3% and the S&P 500 down 3