Can't fix commodity prices with monetary policy

Paul Krugman has the more detailed version with his traditional lefty spin, but I'll go with Michael Roberts' synthesis...

Commodity price rises have little to do with monetary and currency policies in the US and around the world.

... and concise takeaway:

We'd be wise to think about possible collateral damage of higher commodity prices, since I suspect high prices could be here to stay. But this really should have no bearing on monetary policy.

It's pretty easy to verify with a quick look at oil prices over the past three years - the dollar didn't fall far enough to push crude up to $145/bbl, nor rise enough to push it back down to $40, nor fall again enough to get back to today's range of $90+.

Dollar driving commodity prices - for now

Via MR, James Hamilton at Econbrowser shows that the falling dollar - probably driven by quantitative easing - seems to be the main driver of commodity price increases over the last two months. The good news is that monetary policy seems to be working. The bad news is that I don't think we can expect this pure relationship to last for long - too many other drivers on the supply and demand sides are in play - so its value as a barometer for the Fed is probably short-lived.

Update: Dollar is driving metal and hydrocarbon prices, that is - agricultural commodities have more volatile supply.