Canadians should resist the urge to approve permanently higher government spending amid their current commodities boom.

Many of those affected by US trade and domestic agricultural policies are among the poorest people on the planet.

The relationship between international trade and trade policy and the Farm Bill is complex and largely indirect, but vital to the industry. The future of agricultural incomes in the United States will be shaped largely by trade prospects.

If the US withholds funding to the Global Fund, it could lead to major disruptions in the delivery of life-saving medicines. But tolerating the corruption is arguably worse.

The US Average Crop Revenue (ACRE) program was introduced as part of the 2008 Farm Bill. ACRE was marketed as a farm revenue safety net program, but in reality ACRE payments are largely driven by decreases in agricultural commodity prices from recent levels.

Under the Obama healthcare plan, Medicine is undergoing industrialization as doctors become owned commodities of large hospitals and health plans.

Sadly, 43 years after CBS News ran a documentary called "Hunger in America" it could do a new version coming to the same, if not more dire and depressing, conclusions. Hunger is here, in a real and palpable way, exacerbated by our tough economic conditions and persistent unemployment, but worsened as well by the high cost of food, especially nutritious food.

The Fed gambled that the benefits of the stimulus of QE to financial markets would offset the adverse effects of oil price developments. We will live with the consequences of that judgment in coming quarters.