We’ve been so caught up watching stocks soar we haven’t paid much attention to one of our favorite asset classes: commodities.

Last week, the stock market fell by more than 6%. That’s a return of -24.5% for the year. While we equities here in the U.S. continue to struggle, emerging nations have been hit even harder… especially commodity-based economies.

Never has there been a time where the stock market has influenced the commodities markets so much.

Last time I checked, the price of soybeans, cocoa or orange juice had absolutely no relationship to whether Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), Disney (NYSE: DIS), or Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) declined in price.

But these days, we’ve got a serious blurring of the lines between global marketplaces. In addition, the prevalence and ease of electronic trading, coupled with well-capitalized hedge funds, means we’re seeing all kinds of different markets having an affect on one another.

Not so long ago, it used to be that money typically flowed from one asset class to another – for example, from stocks to commodities. But that isn’t happening now as most players have either bailed…

Corn is in trouble because of the wet spring that has drenched the Midwest. Yesterday, the USDA said in a report that American corn output will be down significantly from last year’s estimate.

What to do with your refiner shares.

Lenders have severely cut back on lending. Since last June banks all over the world were forced to write-off $323 billion in bad debt. There’s much more to come.

When a commodity or stock breaks out to new highs, as oil has done again this week, it’s extremely unwise to go short, as many are suggesting. I have no doubt, of course, that now I’ve said that in print, it will mark the top of the market.

Whether his travels take our commodities guru, Kevin Kerr, to the Middle East or the Midwest of the U.S., the stories are very similar. Most people are concerned about the rising costs of agricultural commodities. And they should be. The commodity boom is real.

Today’s Whiskey is a special excerpt from legendary financial mind Jim Rogers’ book, Hot Commodities. In this essay, Jim explains away some of the myths many people associate with commodity markets.

The next president will face soaring foreclosures, insolvency at Freddie and Fannie, street protests against foreclosures, and a growing number of bank failures. It’s not too hard to guess what’s likely to happen next, is it?