By John Richardson OUR blogs are awarding themselves a pat on the back today. The reason is that investment bank Goldman Sachs, the largest player in commodity markets, has completely reversed its analysis of oil markets. They now accept our view, and that of the blog we work with very closely with, Chemicals & The […]
Asian Chemical Connections
BBC News Warns On China’s Demographic Crisis
A major new report from BBC News suggests that “China’s economic model is in danger” due to its rapidly ageing population. It reaches exactly the same conclusions as in our Boom, Gloom and the New Normal ebook. Chapter 6, published in November 2011 was titled ‘The Risks to China and India Growth’. Now, what was […]
China’s Demographic Crisis
Chinese govt poster promoting the one-child policy By John Richardson IF all you can remember is strong emerging markets growth, then it is easy to be misled into only building into your scenarios the notion that China and India are merely pausing for economic breath. Conventional wisdom remains that this is, decidedly, the […]
New Policies Needed To Restore Growth
Politicians seem to be floundering as they seek to restore growth to the Western economy. Their prescriptions swing between austerity and economic stimulus as they argue over what has gone wrong. But in chapter 10 of our Boom, Gloom & The New Normal e-book we argue that they are on the wrong track. They are […]
Oil Prices And Demand Destruction
By John Richardson THE danger that high oil prices pose to the global economy, and therefore, of course, petrochemicals demand, has been highlighted by a new report from HSBC. It makes the point that quantitative easing, which has led to investors fleeing a weaker dollar into commodities, is a major contributory factor behind the rally […]
Morgan Stanley Bullish Again
By John Richardson MORGAN Stanley has once again produced a very bullish forecast for China’s polyethylene (PE) market. The investment bank was famous for devising the SuperCycle theory in late 2010. It failed to take into account clear signs that 2011 was going to be a bad year. Version 2.0 of its bullish view on the industry assumes that 2011 was so […]
China And The WTO Ten Years On
By John Richardson TEN years ago this weekend China officially joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and so no doubt numerous speeches have been given about all the benefits to the global economy. Here is a somewhat more negative perspective: *As the diagram above seeks to illustrate, China hugely built-up its manufacturing industry to take advantage of Western […]
Relief Rallies Will Not Be Sustained
By John Richardson FURTHER relief rallies in petrochemical markets that occur over the next few weeks and months will not change the overall direction. Buyers will inevitably run short of stocks down all the value chains and we thus will see some more brief flurries of price rises. Another driver of inventory rebuilding will be recoveries […]
India Needs A New Political Direction
Manmohan Singh compromises to the point where “policy has no direction” Source of picture: Wikipedia By John Richardson IN A week during which the Eurozone could quite easily break-up, the influence that individual political leaders will have on shaping our economic future has been thrown in to further stark relief. And in some countries it […]
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