This graph was only thru January 2026. The spike up since Donald Trump's war in Iran is above 600, only exceeded from Biden's war in Ukraine in 2022.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCU325311325311

      Fertilizer Prices Up More Than 71% in 90 Days: Worst-Case Scenario for Farmers?    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No648252X4Q

on the bright side every producer has the chance to lock in fert prices and by a huge margin they do

Thanks very much, mcfarm.

I'm puzzled by your statement. How would a producer lock in favorable fertilizer prices right now???

Did you mean HAD as in late last year they could have locked in the much lower price???

Nobody has a crystal ball and could have know this was coming up. Maybe you know something as a producer that I don't about the current price. 

Are the local farm co-ops offering huge discounts?

Fertilizer Prices Surge Ahead of a Critical Planting Season

https://www.cmegroup.com/openmarkets/agriculture/2026/Fertilizer-Prices-Surge-Ahead-of-a-Critical-Planting-Season.html

+++++++++++++

Middle East conflict sends fertilizer prices soaring for Indiana farmers    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2uIjhSXSoY

yes we lock it in over the winter. Most years it pays, problem is it has to be paid for. Major bite for the operating budget. 

And ofcourse not many knew Iran was finally going to be dealt with as they most certainly should of been years ago, but just as producers hedge their grain sales this is hedging an expense. Many time future grain sales simultaneously  so as not to be caught one sided.

Thanks, mcfarm!

i have 95% of fertilizer hedged, but will they be able to deliver???

Talked to my supplier said they will deliver. They were fearing for those who didn't have it bought, but they were still offering, but at very high prices.

Didn't get my fuel hedged, bummer!!

Thanks, cutworm!

Days like yesterday, when beans closed limit down because of Trump's comments about the meeting with China being postponed at the same time that fuel and fertilizer costs are soaring higher are not fun for producers.

I feel for you, man and was thinking about you guys when I started this thread.

At least the rapidly developing El Nino increases the chances for good weather this growing season but that's not assured.

Our last 2 really bad, widespread droughts in 1988 and 2012 were from La Nina's. 

And the CO2 continues to slowly climb, providing FREEEEEEE atmospheric fertilizer to all crops, plants/trees on the planet which is massively greening up. 

That is NOT going to change as long as CO2(from humans burning fossil fuels) continues to bless the planet with more of this beneficial gas(optimal level for life on this planet is 900 parts per million and we are not quite half of that currently but will never go over 600 ppm)

                Death by GREENING!            

                            52 responses |           

                Started by metmike - May 11, 2021, 2:31 p.m.       

     https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/69258/

+++++++++

Those that call it CARBON pollution don't even understand basic chemistry.

Carbon is a black solid. CO2 is a beneficial gas that just happens to have 1 atom of carbon in that molecule.

Thousands of things have atoms of carbon in them, INCLUDING ALL OF OUR FOOD!!!

Do we call H2O, the main greenhouse gas HYDROGEN POLLUTION because it has 1 atom of hydrogen in it?

We better cut back on drinking water because its HYDROGEN POLLUTION  

                The Beauty of Earth            

                            35 responses |          

                Started by metmike - Feb. 25, 2025, 10:20 a.m.   

         https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/110136/

+++++++++++

                Dream about Photosynthesis            

                            Started by metmike - July 8, 2025, 11:19 a.m.         

   https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/113061/

++++++++

                CO2 Finally Exonerated!!            

                            33 responses |         

                Started by metmike - March 2, 2025, 8:56 p.m.      

      https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/110244/

After everything that's happened  the last 14 months, do you still think Biden sent the Russian army into Ukraine?
Do you still trust the sources that told you this tale?
The US has provided $0 in military aid to Ukraine since 1/20/25 & the war continues.

Patrick, I am not sure about the money. The way Biden and his staff were shoving billions out the door in his last days we most likely will never know where those billions went. At his point I trust Israel much more than I ever trusted Zelinsky

Thanks for the reminder on fuel cutworm. We did not get it all locked but did 5000 just prior to Iran

Hi Patrick,

I already proved this several times to joj.

Coincidentally, I posted the actual facts in a post in your AI thread.

The response to joj in that thread was to fact check and  bust chatgpt's twisted version of the authentic facts because chatgpt like other similar sources of information are mainly just regurgitating what the consensus is.

                Chatgpt Fact checking MetMike            

                19 responses |              

                Started by joj - Aug. 18, 2025, 10:35 p.m.           

 https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/114033/

Do you still trust the sources that told you this tale?

Patrick, you should know by now that i don't trust any sources on either side. I gather my own objective, INDEPENDENT and comprehensive authentic facts and use only those facts NOT how other sources tell everybody else what to believe.

And I always use the scientific method to fact check myself as much as possible, catching myself being wrong 100 times before posting it here. 

And its still possible for me to be wrong with others pointing things out that I will immediately correct and learn from it.

This isn't one of them. I spent, literally many hundreds of hours+ researching this one. The authentic facts about what evolved and why BEFORE Putin invaded are crystal clear and documented.

They contradict the propaganda and consensus.  

We can both agree about what the consensus is on this but the authentic facts contradict it and once people believe something, its almost impossible to get them to change their minds.

                Opinions vs authentic facts             

                Started by metmike - March 13, 2026, 11:24 p.m.            

https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/118642/

+++++++++++

Let me just repeat this, Patrick. No sources told me this. I figured it out myself by gathering authentic facts, evidence and empirical data, then applied OBJECTIVE critical thinking. 

My starting point was NOT being part of a political party, belief system or leaning towards any of them or any particular source and I actually liked Joe Biden a great deal when he was VP(and previously)  and voted for him, along with Obama in 2008. 

I feel that this is not something that we will ever agree on but if you provide information that nobody has to contradict the authentic facts that I posted to joj and others previously in half a dozen threads here, I'll be glad to adjust my position. 

And I don't care what sources disagree with me or how many there are that disagree, you will have to show that authentic history never happened. 

98% of what we've been told about this is propaganda that comes from the Military-Industrial-Political-Media complex message gatekeepers in the United States and NATO countries.

+++++++++++

Let me repeat something else on this topic.

Putin is a murderous psychopath that invaded Ukraine illegally and now can't be stopped. He is responsible for over a million causalities, global inflation and all sorts of additional negative consequences.

The point here is that Joe Biden had the option of negotiating with him over his main demand to keep NATO out of Ukraine and Joe Biden, instead decided it would be the perfect opportunity to take care of Putin once and for all by fighting a war with him.

Using the country of Ukraine and brave Ukrainian soldiers for the battlefield,  along with US weapons he was convinced that we would defeat Putin.

Sometimes a leaders choices are not crystal clear good and bad. In this case, the choices were give into Putin's demands about NATO in Ukraine(bad in NATO's view) or fight a massive war with Russia and in their view, destroy Russia forever at the cost of countless Ukrainian lives and US tax payer funded weapons(which was the biggest reason for our morally bankrupt military-industrial-political-media complex to support this war that gave them block busters profits and ratings while the poor Ukrainians paid the price-and absurdly, we called it "supporting Ukraine". Horse manure. The reason Ukrainians elected Zelensky was because he promised peace with Russia before Biden/NATO turned him into their puppet, sacrificing his people because Biden promised him that he would defeat Russia and be a great war hero.

Patrick, our opinion about Putin is exactly the same, actually as is joj's.

Please read this comment/response about Putin's illegal annexation of Crimea a decade ago.

                Re: Re: Zelensky Offers No NATO Compromise            

                           By metmike - Dec. 17, 2025, 11:01 a.m.    

+++++++++

My entire point on this is that Joe Biden had 2 main options in late 2021/early 2022 and 1 of them would have prevented the invasion of Ukraine by agreeing with Putin to not let NATO into Ukraine. 

Just from a military leadership perspective, there was NEVER a chance to defeat Putin's 5 times bigger army. They wanted a war for the military-industrial-political-media complex and to weaken Putin........the heck with the poor Ukrainians and others.

BTW, soldiers that were born in Russia and had little choice are human beings too and even more of them have died.      So when news stories cheer their deaths, its also sad.   

Good move on the fuel, mcfarm. I was asleep at the wheel on the fuel.

Something Biden said a month after Russia unprovoked & illegally invaded Ukraine, and Indiana scholastic chess?

Maybe I'm dim, but this is not entirely convincing.
I played high school chess in Ohio, and we never even attacked Shaker Heights.

Good one, Patrick!

You're definitely  NOT dim. 

However, you seem to be NOT applying your intelligence objectively here, or even reading what I just sent..... which is what just about everybody does. Even intelligent people do it after they've decided they already know something.............and they process all new information so that it lines up with THEIR truth. 

  All I can do is show the authentic facts. I don't even pretend to be able to get people to look at them as you didn't look at this the first time because your response is that Putin wasn't provoked. 

But you're an intelligent guy and seem extremely rational, so I'll try again.

Biden/NATO decided that expanding NATO into Ukraine was worth fighting this war over instead of agreeing with Putin to stop expanding into Russia's "Motherland", Ukraine. 

There are actually half a dozen threads here with many hundreds of posts by me explaining many elements related to  this. I don't mind rehashing some of the key points for people that were not around the past 4 years for the discussions but would appreciate it if you would actually read what is in the posts below before making a comment that tells me you completely ignored it last time.

I know that copying the entire posts would be more effective but am trying to reduce the length of my already excessively long winded, analytical posts. (My wife tells me all the time that I'm over analytical about everything).

Thanks in advance for reading these posts!

               Post of the week-2-16-25           

                                                        By metmike - Feb. 17, 2025, 4:57 p.m.    

                Re:  Post of the week-2-16-25           

                            By metmike - Feb. 17, 2025, 4:58 p.m.          

                Re: Re:  Post of the week-2-16-25           

                            By metmike - Feb. 17, 2025, 5:04 p.m.    

+++++++++++++++++

And we know without a doubt that Biden blew up the natural gas pipeline before the Winter in Europe. The biggest eco-terrorist act in human history committed by the United States.

Methane is 80 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas warming the planet as CO2 and is REAL pollution not a beneficial gas that greens the planet.

    NORD STREAM ~ RUSSIA ~ ETC,            

                            38 responses |            

                Started by 12345 - Feb. 8, 2023, 8:26 p.m.    

       https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/92953/

In 2014, Russia stole Crimea from Ukraine.
It was part of a long term process of Putin's gangster state interfering with and trying to take over former countries of the USSR.
The Ukraine knew that eventually Russia would be back to try and take the rest of their country. They asked for help.
On February 22, 2022, as expected, Russia attacked with a force of over 200,000 troops.
Decent people, most of the world, condemned Russia and did what they could to aid Ukraine.
Abuser logic blamed the victims.
The cult, led by a Russian stooge, blamed Biden for trying to respond to the pleas for help.
You've realized that Trump is a blight on humanity. The needed next step is rejecting the MAGA nonsense you absorbed in the past 10 years. The hardest part of that cleansing is to reconsider the parts you convinced yourself were your own insights, not a repackaging of the lies they so thickly spread.

"The needed next step is rejecting the MAGA nonsense you absorbed in the past 10 years. The hardest part of that cleansing is to reconsider the parts you convinced yourself were your own insights, not a repackaging of the lies they so thickly spread."

Thanks, Patrick!

I'll stay above your personal attacks. I just try to help enlighten people with the truth. 

You might want to revise your latest accusation of me which is from the Twilight Zone as anybody that has been reading me recently knows. I never respond in kind, instead, just providing authentic facts to DEBUNK people here(or adjust my opinion) (or agree with them). You completely ignored all the authentic facts in my last post to help you but here's more AUTHENTIC FACTS from a person that you accuse of being a MAGA brainwashed moderator. I've made many, many dozens just like this which clearly defines my relationship with MAGA.  Again........AUTHENTIC FACTS not biased opinions. 

                Re: Trumps pardons         

                                                          By metmike - Jan. 22, 2025, 7:55 a.m.            

                                       Anybody not in Trump's far right MAGA cult knows clearly that these pardons, while they fall under the power of the president are a major ABUSE of that power and they  are endorsing serious criminal activity if it's in the name of Donald J Trump.

The saddest thing of all is that Joe Biden was so, so, so bad, cognitively damaged and corrupt that he caused Trump to win by a near landslide, DESPITE Trump's blatantly violating the Constitution and his vows to defend it. Now, he condones everybody else  participating in this attempt to overthrow the government and makes them out to be martyrs and even hero's because they committed crimes in the name of Donald J Trump.

                Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Trump off ballot in Colorado            

                By metmike - Dec. 20, 2023, 6:26 p.m.            

                            Re: Re: around 200 trancripts released from jan 6th            

                           By metmike - June 17, 2023, 6:11 p.m.            

Tenets of the Donald J. Trump MAGA cult

1. Though shalt not criticize Donald Trump

2. Though shalt not disobey Donald Trump's orders

3. Donald Trump is ALWAYS a victim

4. Those that attack Donald Trump are evil and the enemy

5. The only way to defeat evil and "drain the swamp" is thru Donald Trump

6. The only way to salvation is thru Donald Trump/MAGA

7. The 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump

8. When Republicans lose elections, the swamp and Democrats were cheating

New: 9.  On Jan. 6th 10s of thousands of  peaceful protesters came out to support President Trump. They were incited to riot by an FBI plant, Ray Epps. President Trump told them to be peaceful and even called thousands from  the National Guard that day for additional security but Nancy Pelosi called them off in order to frame Trump.

10. The violent/deadly riots in the Summer of 2020 that let most of the crimes go unprosecuted is evidence that people that committed crimes during the Insurrection attempt are innocent and being singled out because they support Donald Trump(victim narrative).

https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/96365/#96370

11.  The January 6th Committee made up all the facts that were presented, even though the vast majority of their witnesses  were Republicans with accurate, verified evidence, none that were contradicted with credible information outside of the hearings.  

12. The judges are all biased against Trump.

13. Tucker Carlson holds one of the most esteemed, high priest positions in the MAGA cult and is considered to be another infallible source of information. This far right charlatan has built his own cult by using the same technique's and lies that Trump uses to capture far right MAGA brains...... even though his emails told  us how he really feels.......the truth that Tucker knows contradicts what he states for ratings so that he can lure the far right into tuning into his shows.  There are many others in the media especially at Fox,  like Mark the Charlatan Levin, Shaun Hannity, Jesse Watters and more. His far right R politicians are afraid to confront him and especially know that his enforcement means 10s of millions of votes. They all serve as his high priests to impose and enforce these tenets of his cult on tens of millions of Rs that tune in to hear their wishes come true every time they manufacture a fictional   world which always features the Rs and their agendas as the infallible heros trying to defeat the diabolically evil Ds and swamp that are trying to destroy our country and destroy Trump.          

3-18-26:  I could copy the other dozens and dozens of threads just like this one above but 1 is more than enough to prove the AUTHENTIC FACTS. As I continue to insist here, my favorite posts are those that disagree with me, like your's Patrick. Those are the ones that offer the biggest opportunity for people to learn when 1 side is right and one side is wrong(I have had the pleasure to learn things in situations like that in the past). 

Even when the 2 sides don't agree(as in this post), we have hundreds of readers that can see our 2 positions and decide for themselves if they want to believe the authentic facts or the opinion that is wrong in this case. That is not to insinuate that I'm always right, which I'm not. 

I started this thread below last Friday and I hope you'll read it, Patrick. Hoping and being realistic are 2 different things of course but the choice is yours and others here can use this conversation as the quintessential example of what this thread below was exactly meant to address. Society has a profound and rapidly growing problem  with people only aligning with others and their ideas from the same tribes and completely closing their minds to anything and  anybody that they think is not in their tribe. 

++++++++++++++++

                Opinions vs authentic facts             

                         Started by metmike - March 13, 2026, 11:24 p.m.  

          https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/118642/

++++++++++++++++

"You've realized that Trump is a blight on humanity"

At least we can agree on that in the strongest way, Patrick!

That tenet list is pretty good, sad as it is funny.

Thanks, patrick!

And most of the stuff on that list was from 3 years ago, well BEFORE this current, 2nd term under Donald Trump who is suffering from progressive dementia.

His flagrant,  egregious violations of ethics, International Law, the Constitution, the justice system, truth, humanity and everything that we cherish as people with basic standards of behavior is an order of magnitude worse than the first term. 

I've tried to minimize my posts about this on the trading forum, however after he started the Iran war and turned his extreme politics into market dominating news, that's no longer possible and flowing along with the impact on our markets..........are some of my political opinions that are needed to project what Donald Trump might do next and to understand him based on how my brain analyses the big picture of any realm.

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/urea

Upside breakout after the unprovoked Netanyahu/Trump war with Iran started. Continuing to spike higher along with the global price increase of natural gas which is a key component in fertilizer. 

1. 1 year

2. 5 years. Top/highs from Ukraine war on the left that resulted from Biden refusing to negotiate with Putin. 

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/urea

1. 1 month: Red line was the start of the unjustified/unprovoked war with Iran that Bibi Netanyahu tricked Donald Trump into joining by using Donald Trump's MENTAL ILLNESS and pathological craving for over the top praise and adulation.

2. 5 years: Biden's war with Ukraine of the left, resulting from Joe Biden refusing to negotiate with Putin, instead telling Zelensky to stop the negotiations and that Ukraine would defeat Russia with their military and the weapons of the United States. 

The insatiable ego: why some people need constant flattery

https://medium.com/@manfred.ketsdevries_62226/the-insatiable-ego-why-some-people-need-constant-flattery-d3adab82a3a0

So these individuals must continually look outward to know who they are. They need to see themselves reflected as great, admirable, brilliant, victorious, not because they genuinely believe these qualities reside within, but because they fear they do not. The mirror is not for preening; it is for survival.

Trump’s orbit reveals this pattern with almost clinical clarity. Aides who deliver praise are elevated. Those who offer truth are exiled. Advisors who flatter remain close; those who contradict are replaced. He constructs a world in which disagreement is treason and doubt is disloyalty. Only admiration feels safe. Only devotion feels tolerable. Only affirmation soothes the internal tremors.

For those who depend on flattery to prop up their self-worth, criticism is not merely unpleasant; it is existentially threatening. As noted before, praise is oxygen. Criticism is suffocation.

Over time, the leader becomes isolated inside a bubble of praise, precisely the condition that worsens the fragility at their core.

Again, Trump illustrates this structure with almost theatrical clarity. His firing patterns, midnight tirades, public feuds, impulsive purges, and explosive reactions to even the gentlest criticism reveal a psyche that experiences dissent not as democratic discourse but as a personal wound. Staff members routinely describe entering meetings prepared not with facts but with flattery, knowing that one misplaced comment could ignite hours of fury. Foreign leaders who discovered this dynamic exploited it; domestic rivals suffered beneath it.

In such environments, truth no longer functions as a shared standard; it becomes a provocation. Disagreement is interpreted not as a contribution but as betrayal. Correction feels like humiliation. Delay feels like defiance. Reality itself becomes negotiable. Those who tell inconvenient truths are dismissed as traitors; those who flatter are elevated as visionaries. Policy becomes indistinguishable from psychology. What the leader needs emotionally determines what the government attempts politically.

The consequences are far from abstract. Entire systems begin tiptoeing around one person’s fragility. Intelligence agencies soften their briefings. Legislators tend to mute criticism to avoid retribution. Diplomats recalibrate alliances around a leader’s vanity rather than strategic interest. Government becomes a mirror palace, calibrated to reflect only one person’s preferred image back to him. The irony is that leaders who demand constant praise believe they are projecting strength — yet everyone else can see that they are merely shielding weakness. Their power looks immense, but their emotional life is flimsy, breakable, desperate for applause. And because they cannot bear being ordinary, the country is forced to participate in a national performance designed to keep them feeling extraordinary.

This is the tragic nucleus of flattery-addicted leaders: people loudly performing invincibility while internally clinging to praise as if it were oxygen. They preside over a kingdom of mirrors — shimmering, reflective, and catastrophically fragile. And the public pays the price for the instability at the core, bearing the burden of governing around an ego that must be endlessly managed, appeased, and inflated. In the end, the nation bends more than the leader does, contorting itself around a single, unsteady psyche. And what begins as a personality disorder becomes a political disorder — one in which the country must continually shield its most powerful figure from the sharp edges of reality.

+++++++++++++++++

June 22, 2025:            

 Netanyahu praises Trump's 'bold decision' to strike Iranian nuclear sites    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL4rmsJHX08

After watching that video, ask yourself how anything he said could be true if less than 9 months after it, Israel and the United States had to start a NEW war with Iran.

Bibi Netanyahu would make an excellent diabolical psychiatrist! He knows how Donald Trump's mind works and is using it ……exploiting it to the MAX to accomplish his own agenda in Iran.

++++++++++++++

Continuing from the article:

Flattery addiction is, in the end, both tragically human and painfully absurd. Tragic, because it reveals a psyche so precarious that it cannot stand without constant propping. Absurd, because the props must be rebuilt every day, like a stage set that collapses each night and must be reassembled before the curtain rises again. The flattery-addicted person must be inflated endlessly because they cannot tolerate being human-sized. Their emotional life becomes a loop: praise enters, but it never adheres. Approval is absorbed and immediately evaporates. The ego drinks but never hydrates. No amount of applause lasts until morning.

And the final irony, the one that turns this entire psychological structure from merely tragic to genuinely heartbreaking, is that those who need flattery the most intensely are the least capable of feeling loved. Love, unlike flattery, requires vulnerability. Love requires reciprocity, humility, the willingness to be seen without the armor of performance. Love demands an emotional nakedness that the flattery-addicted personality cannot risk. Praise reassures; love exposes. Praise stabilizes; love transforms. And transformation is precisely what they fear most.

Thus they remain trapped in a gilded psychological cage of their own making, surrounded by people but starving for connection, fed by applause but famished for affection. The world may see confidence, dominance, swagger, command. But beneath the spectacle lies a person who fears that without constant applause, they will collapse into the emptiness they have spent their entire lives trying not to feel.

+++++++++++++++++++++

These are the credentials of the author of this article:

Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_F.R._Kets_de_Vries

Kets de Vries has written more than 50 books, 400 articles and book chapters on leadership, and organizational and personal change.

Kets de Vries has won(numerous) awards for his work in the leadership field.

Besides crude oil, the Strait of Hormuz also is a MAJOR transportation channel  for natural gas(used to manufacture fertilizer) and fertilizer supplies. 

1. 1 month: Upside breakout from Donald Trump's unjustified war with it's unintended consequences that were self inflicted on the entire, global farming community and food crop world because he is mentally ill.

2. 5 years: Prices were already high BEFORE the Ukraine war started, noted with the red line on the left. Clear upside break out on the right from the impact because of the war in Iran on global fertilizer supplies. 

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/urea

The world is running out of fuel: How the Iran war triggered the worst energy crisis in history

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-world-is-running-out-of-fuel-how-the-iran-war-triggered-the-worst-energy-crisis-in-history/ar-AA207f8b

The Food Crisis Nobody Is Talking About

 Beyond fuel, a slower-moving catastrophe is unfolding in global food markets. The Strait of Hormuz isn’t just an oil chokepoint — it’s central to the global fertilizer trade. Over 30% of the world’s urea, widely used in agriculture and produced from natural gas, is exported from Gulf countries through the strait.  

The British think tank The Food Policy Institute has warned of long-term increases in food prices as fertilizer costs spiral. When fertilizer becomes expensive, so does growing corn, wheat, and virtually every staple crop on Earth. 

Gulf states themselves are particularly vulnerable — Qatar, for example, imports over 90% of its food. The war that was supposed to neutralize Iran’s nuclear threat is now threatening food security for billions.

Amazing that I forgot to have links to show how we make fertilizer. That’s coming up.

It’s a miracle feeding half the planet!

Anothersecret about fossil fuels: Haber Bosch process-fertilizers feeding the planet using natural gas-doubling food production/crop yields. September 2019

https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/39215/

Fertilizer prices continue to be elevated because of the war in Iran and fertilizer production being impacted negatively.

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/urea

1. 1 year: Iran war upside break out.

2. Ukraine war in 2022 on top of already high prices on the left. Iran war upside break out on the right.