By John Richardson FIRST of all they were brilliant, almost omnipotent, and so China represented a constant “long” option: Just shove more and more money in that direction and you were guaranteed to enjoy fantastic returns. The handful of middle-aged men who run China were then suddenly uniquely incompetent, meaning you simply had to short […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Oil Market Muddle Continues Because Of Wrong Focus
CONFUSED? You will remain confused by oil markets as long as you continue to only look at physical supply and demand. Here is my long, but I think essential, historical explanation about why I think this is the root of today’s forecasting problems. And I also make no apologies for going over all ground because […]
Asia’s Ageing Populations: Challenges And Opportunities
By John Richardson EVERYONE should know by now that China faces a demographic crisis that, unless addressed, guarantees much lower GDP growth for many years to come. This explains the urgency of economic reforms designed to escape the “middle income trap”. But here are some disturbing statistics from the Asian Development Bank about other countries in […]
The West Is Becoming “Cash Poor And Time Rich”
By John Richardson Consumers in the West are moving from being ‘cash rich and time poor” to being “cash poor and time rich”. The reason is that Western fertility rates have below replacement level (2.1 babies/woman) for 45 years since 1970, meaning there are relatively fewer Wealth Creators. Another problem is the pension pot in […]
US Oil Exports And The Struggle For Jobs
By John Richardson THERE are few other genuine long-term bright spots in the US economy other than shale oil and shale gas unless you are at the very top of the economic pile and so view cloud computing, social media and internet search engines as equivalent to “Morning in America” again. Cloud computing, social media […]
President Donald Trump: This Chart Tells You Why It’s Possible
By John Richardson PEOPLE are scratching their heads over the sustained popularity of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders – the two most-prominent “populist” candidates for presidency of the US. But nobody should be the slightest bit surprised that Trump and Sanders are doing so well, given the failure of mainstream politicians to provide solutions to […]
How To Solve Deflation: People Need To Retire Later
By John Richardson AN economic theory is only of any use if it actually works in practice and if it becomes obvious it doesn’t work what is the first thing you should do? Well, of course, the answer is you scrap that theory and start again. Not, sadly, in the case of the Fed who, […]
The Price Of Oil: Another Huge Historical Shift
By John Richardson FIRST came the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 followed by the reunification of Germany and the integration of Eastern Europe in general into the Western way of running the world. Then came China’s rise following the Deng Xiaoping 1992 “Southern Tour” and China’s admission to the World Trade Organisation in 2001. […]
China On The Right Track But US Derailed
By John Richardson LI Keqiang is spending on railways like it is still 2009, according to some analysts. In other words, they believe that China’s prime minister is pouring more money into this one area of infrastructure in a desperate and short-sighted attempt to shore-up economic growth – and they see this as a backward […]
China: Why Complacency Followed By Panic Hasn’t Helped….
…..AND WHY YOU NOW NEED MULTIPLE SCENARIOS By John Richardson FOR many, many years a small group of men who run China were viewed as uniquely competent because of the “economic miracle” that they had achieved. China’s approach to government was thus seen as much better than the chaotic mess that is usually democracy […]
Jump to page: