What to think. Confirmation that the ongoing rise in commodity prices is of economic origin and not a worrisome monetary phenomenon comes from a Kudlow & Co. survey of 51 of the world’s larger economies, representing approximately 94 percent of global GDP. The data reveal a strong tandem relationship between the commodity price swings of recent years and the contraction and expansion of the global marketplace. Nominal GDP for the economies surveyed ended 2005 at $41.6 trillion (in current U.S. dollars), up 0.4 percent from the prior quarter and 5.1 percent above its year-earlier level. More significant, since the global...