The Thompson Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index (CRB) is back down to the panic lows of early 2009. For those who think the CRB Index says nothing about global growth…invest accordingly at your own peril. 

If you believe this commodity crunch is all about some temporary oil supply glut, think again. There are 19 commodities that make up the CRB Index:  Aluminum, Cocoa, Coffee, Copper, Corn, Cotton, Crude Oil, Gold, Heating Oil, Lean Hogs, Live Cattle, Natural Gas, Nickel, Orange Juice, Silver, Soybeans, Sugar, Unleaded Gas and Wheat. The value of the weighted average of these commodities is screaming one thing loudly: the rate of global growth is plummeting just as it was at the height of the Great Recession.

This is mainly because the synthetic economy of China, which once sucked up the natural resources of the globe in order to create the world's greatest fixed asset bubble in history, is now in freefall. And it is driving down the price of commodities as global growth grinds to a halt.

For those who think the U.S. and the rest of the world will be somehow immune to a China slowdown should note that foreign sales accounts for about one third of aggregate revenue for the S&P 500. For years China had been a huge growth market for multi-national companies. However, its recent rut is affecting both domestic and international companies around the globe that once provided China with natural resources during its empty-city building bonanza.

These companies and countries who benefitted from China's success are now reeling from its collapse. For example; U.S. multinationals such as Caterpillar (CAT),  Ford (F), GM (GM), Tesla (TSLA) and Freeport McMoRan (FCX) have been negatively affected by the slowdown in China, just to name a few. And then we have apple, whose stock is down 14% in the past few weeks because investors are now realizing Chinese consumers are not going to buy the volume of iWatches that have been predicted.