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.

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.

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.

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?

It’s not just the credit crisis that has been keeping policymakers awake at night. A food crisis is sweeping the world like “a silent tsunami”, as Josette Sheeran of the World Food programme puts it, leaving widespread riots and rattled governments in its wake.