The madison reading was very interesting. one thing that i found that was extremely surprising was the sheer tonnage of gold and silver that the Spanish empire was shipping. From what i could grasp from the reading the Spanish empire was the first true global trade parter. using the mass amounts of silver and gold to fund its trade with china and the rest of Asia to get silks and spices. Comparatively America is what Spain was in the sixteenth century. This reading got me thinking and looking into modern day commodity trading and how OPEC is trying to put a freeze on there oil to drive up prices.