Karl Marx, The Miner’s Strike, Margaret Thatcher, Thatcherism, capitalism, financial meltdown
Asian Chemical Connections
“Real” people start to suffer even more
Bradford and Bingley, UK, auto industry, consumer spending, plastic packaging, financial meltdown
The big challenges
As delegates gather for this year’s European Petrochemical Association meeting in the unreal world of Monaco (unreal for the 99.9 per cent recurring of us who don’t own Ferraris), I thought it was worth summarising some of the issues discussed on this blog over the last few months. We’ve dealt with: *Oil-price volatility and the […]
Eggheads are annoying
BASF, eggheads, integration benefits, McKinsey, counter-cyclical investment, Ciba Specialty Chemicals, Clariant
The world is round after all
Thomas Friedman, globalisation, global warming, Peak Oil, Hot, Flat and Crowded, climate change, SABIC
Uncle Sam back from the dead?
Shell Chemicals, oil price, McKinsey, shipping costs,
The river doesn’t just run black
Billy Connolly, The Climate Group, harmonious society, Den Xiaoping, leftover venison, BP, Dow Chemical
The West can still be the best
It is very easy assume that Asia ex-Japan will eventually catch up with the West and become as good at “solution” chemicals as the West. I am excluding Japan because it has long been a major speciality player. All the money that China, for example, is pouring into its state-run research institutes would seem to […]
The CO2 blame game
In my previous post, I talked about the collapse of the Doha round of trade negotiations and how this didn’t auger well for a new global agreement for setting greenhouse gas-emission limits and a worldwide price on carbon. The chemicals industry needs clarity. A global price for carbon would enable companies to plan R&D investments […]
Why the Doha failure is bad
The failure, and quite possibly the death, of the Doha round of trade negotiations earlier this week could create a very confusing and erratic regulatory landscape for the chemicals industry. This excellent entry in the New Scientist environment blog by Fred Pearce, senior environment correspondent, makes the point that if the world cannot agree on […]
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