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Chemicals and the Economy

The blog’s Christmas Quiz

Its now 3 years since the Great Recession began. US GDP is still below previous peaks, despite $5trn of stimulus spending and quantitative easing. The position in the Eurozone is even worse. China’s economy will be lucky to escape with a ‘soft landing’. Policymakers seem to have lost the plot. They have forgotten, or maybe […]

USA’s PE exports decline despite shale gas

As promised, the blog looks today at the USA’s trade position in polyethylene (based on data for the January-August period from Global Trade Information Services, the leading global supplier). The chart shows US net trade (exports less imports). This peaked in 2009 (green column), with net exports of 1.6 million tonnes. Volume had risen 69% […]

Political, Social concerns drive non-Western companies

Last week’s New Normal seminar in Houston continued the success of the Singapore and Frankfurt events. It sparked lively debate about the major opportunities for future growth in the New Normal. These include: • The over-55 age group in the West – already 272m in number • Those millions emerging from poverty in the East […]

Politics, beliefs return to dominate economics

The 10000 readers who downloaded the blog’s first Budget White Paper in December 2009, ‘Budgeting for a New Normal’, will remember the issues highlighted in the triangle above. At the time, they were being widely ignored, as policymakers assumed that the economy would soon return to its previous SuperCycle. Today, this optimism has been revealed […]

Dow Corning launches Shared Value initiative

100 million children in developing countries can’t to see the blackboard in school, because of poor eyesight. They need self-adjusting glasses, because of the shortage of optometrists. So the blog was delighted to learn about Dow Corning’s work with the Centre for Vision in the Developing World to overcome this problem. Their new Child ViSion™ […]

US households cut debt to 6 year low

The US economy is worth $15trn, 24% of the global economy. Domestic consumption, accounts for 70% of the US total. This means the US consumer represents 17% of the global economy. China’s economy, although the 2nd largest in the world, is just $5.7trn. And its domestic consumption is much smaller, representing only 3% of the […]

Housing markets remain uncertain

The blog’s special series this week has focused on housing in 3 key markets – the USA, UK and China. Housing is a core sector for chemical and polymer demand, and it has been particularly important over the past 30 years: • The Western BabyBoomers (those born between 1946-70) have been in the 25 – […]

Shared Value can unleash next wave of global growth

GE’s then CEO, Jack Welch, launched the Shareholder Value concept in 1981. It has since led many investors to adopt a purely short-term focus on financial metrics, rather than longer-term opportunities. The only problem is that, as Welch admitted 2 years ago, it was “a dumb idea“. Now, one of the world’s great management thinkers, […]

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