I’m gonna talk about bacon.

The most exciting financial activity recently has been in the commodities area. It’s important to you and me because commodities contain stuff we eat as well as things like precious metals, gasoline, and the like.

I’m like Bourdain and Lagasse, I love pork. Recently, however, I swear I saw a bacon-flavored milk shake. This has to stop.

You may know that in 2014 lean hogs zoomed up in price to where many people started eating chicken and leaving the pork in the store.

Well, things have changed. Since July of last year, lean hogs have come down more than 50 percent in price. That is a decline greater than oil.

Now you and I know that as consumers you don’t necessarily get all of that savings. There are costs that just don’t come down. Plus, we are all suspicious about getting better prices when the cost of a product falls.

So anyway, I would think that bacon should be becoming more reasonable in cost. These pork prices are at a four-year low.

The run-up in prices happened because of a disease that killed about 8 million piglets last year and foreign demand that was through the roof. Falling demand has caused those prices to come down.

By the way, I am writing this on Thursday so these numbers are as of the close of Wednesday.

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Everyone loves lower gasoline prices. Crude oil is up a little from the low of about $47 a barrel to $51. That is an increase of about 8.5 percent. Gasoline prices are up at least 11 percent so far this year. Go figure.

You and I think the oil companies and the “service stations” are getting us. Who knows?

Someone asked me in the grocery store the other day why I thought gasoline prices were going up. They were not happy. I tried to explain that prices go up when a commodity hits a price that is attractive and demand for the product creates a shortage.

Oil did rebound. I don’t think they understood any of that. They were pretty much convinced there was a conspiracy. I mean, and this is just me talking, does anyone really believe that oil won’t go back up in price?

I could tell you about the millions and millions of people in China and India who are becoming more affluent, and they want cars, but I won’t bore you. Oil may go down in price short term, I have no clue, but to me, at least, I see higher prices somewhere in the future.

I could be wrong, but I have learned not to bet against the oil companies.

By the way, when gas was about $2 a gallon, about 25 percent of that was taxes and fees by our governments. That is about 50 cents a gallon so just remember that when you see those prices. The oil companies are not getting that 50 cents.

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It’s the same with food prices, stock up when you see good values.

Long term, I just think there are higher prices ahead. The world is not losing population.

Cotton, cocoa, and silver are up about 3 percent so far in 2015. Coffee is down 20 percent, OJ and wheat are down about 16 percent, sugar 8 percent, oats 6 percent, and soybeans about 1 percent. At some juncture we should get some lower prices in the grocery store, and they may already be there.

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Airlines seem to be making a killing now. Low fuel prices and fewer airlines to choose from pretty much put them in charge.

Historically being in that business has not been profitable. Airlines seem to do really dumb things. They would increase their flights when there were no passengers, or cut prices to where they actually lost money flying. I think their management was weak also.

They are being silly again. Falling fuel prices should lead to lower prices for me and you. But no, that is not happening. So I’ll tell you what I think will happen. Congress will begin investigations of price gouges from the airlines, and they will begin to call these guys to testify in front of Congress, and they will embarrass these CEOs for absolutely no reason. Lower the prices guys, it’s called being fair.

The markets, although occasionally hitting new highs, have been listless. The S&P 500 is up about 2.3 percent. We are a little higher than we were at the high point in December but not by much.

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The wife came into the Man Cave the other day to tell me that my friend Louie called to cancel our ice fishing trip. He said the bar beside the lake was closed.

She didn’t think that was funny.

Howie Pentony is a Saxonburg portfolio manager.