Commodity sales have dropped across the world—even for strategic materials—and there were few “deep” piles laying about before the downturn. Some of the Really Big Commodity Exporters may have to scale back their social spending enough to hurt—this is going to be real rough since food stockpiles are at a deep low ebb.

The “foreign funding” issue fades, at least for the US, if you look at history. Most of the big advances over here were funded by overseas investors– canals, railroads, steel, etc. Net capital flow was TO the US until the end of WW2 (Lady Liberty has greated both The Wrteched Refuse AND Flight Capital) and may just be balancing out a bit. US bonds have long been a favorite of folks who loved their homeland…but thought it prudent to tuck a little bit away off to the side somewhere.