I just bought some DBA, which is the sym…

I just bought some DBA, which is the symbol for the ETF otherwise known as Power Shares DB Agriculture Fund, an exchange-traded fund of food and agriculture related stocks.

One of the core themes in my approach for the last few years o is a bet that the things we need are likely to go up in price — that is, inflation, especially in the cost of food, clothing, heat, gas, etc is likely to continue to accelerate in coming years.

Fed policies of negative real interest rates and endless new welfare programs for the banking system that all entail some sort of new money creation — such as the laughably-named QE2, fiscal policies of endless targeted tax cuts for the wealthy and corporate and other so-called stimuli, ethanol-quotas sapping food supplies, and so on and on, — are likely to continue to have sizable impact on our economy and the cost of goods. I remain concerned that there are too many people crowded into the gold trade and that the banks are likely to have to begin to horde their capital, which will cut the supply of money into the broader economy. That keeps me focused on the base commodities like corn, soy, sugar, cotton, etc.

The PowerShares DB Agriculture exchange-traded fund is a great way to invest in the longer term trends of higher food prices and the probable acceleration of those price increases in coming quarters and years. More sophisticated investors can invest directly in a basket of like commodities too. I do think that there’s some serious risk of a 30%-50% pullback in gold over the next few years, but even without such a collapse, I don’t think there’s as much upside to gold and silver and other precious metals as there is in food and other base commodities.