The Tumazos audio link is here. If you have a free 18 minutes available, I recommend you listen.

I'm going to try audio podcasting myself in June because I think that after reading somebody's words on your own time the next type of access to bloggers you'll want is to listen to them. Following that you'll want to have access to videocasts, which I hope to do later with a new technology I am looking at.

All in its own time. The technology exists; it's more a matter of familiarity, ease of use and cost. It will all happen because there is a very low barrier to entry to people like me. As I say, this month I will be accessed by about 55,000 unique servers -- maybe 100,000 people -- and I have invested all of $2,000 to get to this point.

I believe that the Tumazos podcast and the BMO Harris' Don Coxe's podcasts that I have been linking to here are forerunners to the trading blogs of tomorrow.

Interestingly, both Tumazos and Coxe discuss metal futures, which is the subject of greatest interest in markets today. Both do a job expected of professionals in that they have knowledge and insights into the workings of markets and are effective communicators to an audience that wants what they have.

So podcasting works. Moreover, it is a technology that is on the cusp of making a radical change to how we communicate, and with whom we communicate.

As our personal time becomes more valuable, we will communicate increasingly with sources of information, education and facilitation that is valuable to us. That's a reason why I think that business and finance media sources that decided instead some time back to be entertaining first and foremost, for example CNBC, have taken the wrong road, and why the Wall Street Journal, for example, has stayed the course.

The issue is simple: would you rather get your information from a Tumazos and Coxe or from a CNBC "personality"?

And that is just the question for the past couple years. In future, it will be: would you rather get your market insights from a brilliant trader in New Zealand or Norway or from a Tumazos and Coxe?

Digital communications in a borderless world zeros right in on what we need and want, which is information we can use here and now to better manage our personal wealth. Somewhere down the list is our need for entertainment, which if, as and when we get time, we'll fit in.

As for what's happening to commodities, I think Coxe has the answer. This situation is all about the decision by the Bank of Japan to stop feeding hedge funds with zero cost loans. As the foreign carry trades get unwound, we will see more cases of backwardation in commodity markets as hedge fund futures traders hit the wall, with offside positions they cannot carry forward.

Here is today's market in copper futures contracts, which clearly shows backwardation:

Did you know that well in excess of 300 hedge funds have closed their doors in the first four months this year, which is already more than all of 2005? There have been more disappointments, more bankruptcies, more frauds, in trading firms than I can recall in my career, and yet there has been no crash in either the equity or debt markets.

Those who discovered a new business model of turning short term gains in market prices into enormous personal compensation is really at fault here.

These people made their money by pushing commodity prices to unsustainable heights, and now are closing their doors. What they were doing was not sustainable.

In the bigger picture, this is nothing new; it's called "pump and dump", "hit and run" " call it what you want.

They did it because, with the help of the hedge fund structure, the Bank of Japan and the commodity cycle, they found a way to personally monetize their ability to exploit a financial system rather than their expertise as traders. They simply jumped on a legitimate cyclical phase in the commodity market and exploited the antiquated laws, rules and regulations that exist in financial markets today.

Until we get legislators to deal with the real issues, the Little People will try to do the same thing as the hedge fund managers. They'll get their information direct from the best sources possible, with as little time float as possible.

That means they'll use audio-video blogs to access experts who may not have all the answers but at least are not wasting time trying to entertain or sell them things they probably do not need or want.

At the end of the day, once again, it will be the always changing informational content, not the media, that is proven most valuable. Then those who have learned the art and science of trading will use that information for sustenance.