Fortune asks - is it too late to invest in commodities? We've touched on this theme many times in the blog (Mar 22: Alert - Commodities are Dead) and my thesis is we'll have a long term upward move as too many humans want to live like Americans ("World of Shortages"), but it will be punctuated by moves (sometimes viciously) downward from time to time due to various factors. The most common one over the past year is the "strong dollar" myth. Another could be "China will implode post Olympics" or "crude is heading back to $60" or any number of reasons. Most of it is nonsense; unless the globe goes back to 90% of people living in abject poverty we are headed down this path, one way or the other. And Americans, ill prepared and still in denial, will be competing with this wave of upwardly mobile people for said resources. Expect a lot of Congressional hearings blaming the wrong people/things over the coming decade.

I'm not the only one on this horse ride, so in no way am I claiming exclusivity on the theme (in fact 2 of my favorites who agree with me are cited in this article), but after such strong moves in commodities I always like to forewarn readers or investors new to the thesis, since they are usually the first to throw in the towel at exactly the wrong time, usually at the tail end of a very healthy 20,30,40% correction. Knowing these ebbs and flows will happen, we'll try to be nimble to avoid the worst of the inevitable pullbacks. (I'm looking at you coal) But these are long term bull markets, plain and simple.

• Back in 2001, the executives running Australian mining giant BHP Billiton (BHP) sensed that China's economic growth was gaining critical mass. So they commissioned a study on how the country's rapid industrialization might affect the global markets for copper, coal, iron ore, oil - all the stuff that the company pulls out of the earth and sells.
• "The results were quite - well, 'outrageous' is probably the right word," CFO Alex Vanselow told me. "Because we didn't believe it. We thought something must be wrong. If our models were right, the pressure China would put on the world would be tremendous."
• But the more they tinkered with their models, the more unbelievable the results became. The fast-growing per-capita income of China's billion-plus people pointed toward a massive thirst for raw materials. When the researchers added India's potential for growth - and its own billion-plus population - the numbers got even more extraordinary. (keep in mind, by mid century - or earlier - India will pass China in population due to the "1 child" rule in China)
• And when they factored in the industry's inadequate investment in new production capacity, they concluded that over the next two decades there would be a historic demand-driven boom in the resources world.
• You see it every day in the $100-plus it now costs to fill up your SUV. Or the 39% increase in the cost of electricity over the past eight years. Or the fact that you're paying 20% more for that box of pasta than you were a year ago.

• Isn't it too late? Aren't these markets way too volatile for investors planning for retirement anyway? And isn't investing in commodities too complicated for average investors? In short, the answers to those questions are: probably not, no, and no.
• Let's start with the biggest, scariest question: Is the commodities boom now like Cisco stock in 2000 or Miami Beach condos in 2006 - i.e., a bubble?
• Some of Wall Street's big brains seem to think so.