Governments spent most of February/March ignoring my warnings here on the dangers posed by the Covid pandemic. Now many are moving in the opposite direction. Unintentionally, they are helping to create fear and panic, which could well lead to another Great Depression and major social unrest. HOW DID WE GET HERE? I began warning of […]
Chemicals and the Economy
Economic risks rise as the lockdowns end
It is now 13 years since I wrote the first post here, in June 2007. A lot has happened since then: There was the 2008 subprime crisis, forecast here and in the Financial Times – although sadly, few took advantage of the warning This led to the publication of ‘Boom, Gloom and the New Normal: How […]
Local supply chains replace global trade as world starts to “do more with less”
Something quite dramatic is happening in the global economy. Of course, Wall Street analysts still maintain that the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic will be over by the summer. What else can they say, given their income mostly depends on persuading the public to buy shares? But anyone on Main Street knows that it will […]
World risks moving from Denial into Anger as the Paradigm of Loss moves forward
The head of the IMF has warned again on the likely scale of the economic depression ahead: “Global growth will turn sharply negative in 2020. In fact, we anticipate the worst economic fallout since the Great Depression.” None of us have ever seen a health crisis on the scale of Covid-19 . Nor have we […]
The world has wasted 3 months – there is little time now left to avoid a Covid-19 catastrophe
It is now 3 months since China’s state television broadcast the first news of the Wuhan virus, now known as Covid-19. And it is almost 3 months since China released the first genetic sequence for the virus on 9 January. But with certain notable exceptions, governments since then have mostly failed to properly activate their […]
Budgeting for the Cycle of Deflation
There is no “business as usual” scenario possible for the 2015-2017 Budget period. Over the past 15 years (since the “dotcom bubble” burst in 2000), policymakers have provided increasing amounts of stimulus to support the economy. Now, finally, we are in the endgame, as the Great Unwinding takes place. This presents us all with major challenges: Most executives and investors under […]
Interesting Quotes (2)
Credit market problems intensified last week, even though stock markets rallied strongly until Wednesday. I thought you might like to see some more comments on what is going on, from people close to the action. ‘Trust was shaken today (Wednesday). Credit depends on trust. If trust disappears, then credit disappears, and you have a systemic […]
Every mania has its illusion
All the world’s media are now carrying accounts of the ‘liar loans’ and fraud that has accompanied the growth in US mortgage lending in recent years. How did this come about? All manias gain their strength from a widely believed ‘fact’ that turns out to have been an illusion. With subprime mortgage loans, the ‘fact’ […]
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