By John Richardson THE above chart is of absolutely critical importance for anybody who is serious about estimating both the strength and nature of future global demand growth for chemicals. If you are not a serious analysts then, sure, ignore demographics and cling on to a few vacuous slogans such as the “rise of the […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Global Economy: “When Elephants Fight, The Grass Suffers”
HERE are some very disturbing statistics: Over the last five years, US oil and gas companies have issued bonds and taken out loans that are together worth $1.2 trillion, according to data from Dealogic. This has created at least 200,000 jobs in oil and gas companies in the States, according to the US Bureau of […]
Policymakers Have Failed The World
By John Richardson WHEN the economic, social and political history of 2008-2014 ends up being written, there are two groups of people who are going to end up bearing a lot of the blame for the new global financial crisis. It is the people who run the Fed and those who ran China’s government until […]
The New Global Financial Crisis: Emerging Market Bonds
By John Richardson EXACTLY how the new global financial crisis will gather momentum is becoming clearer by the day. Greatly adding to this clarity was the latest Bank for International Settlements (BIS) quarterly report, which was released earlier this week. The BIS warned that: Off-shore lending in US dollars had soared to $9 trillion, and, […]
September 2008: How History Is Repeating Itself
By John Richardson WE know that weak growth in China, Europe and the US will have a major negative impact on the global economy in 2015. But does this really mean a new global financial crisis? Won’t the world’s economy instead just splutter along as it has done, pretty much, since the last crisis in […]
Japan: “I Really Don’t Know How We Go Forward”
By John Richardson THERE is no debate. Everyone agrees that Japan simply must overcome its demographic challenges. Here are a few sobering facts which indicate the scale of these challenges: Should current trends continue, Japan’s population will have fallen to 87 million from its current size of 127 million by 2060, according to this article […]
Abenomics Are Wrong For Japan And The World
By John Richardson TEN years, a Japanese contact told me, “When we eventually work out the right set of economic policies to get us out of our problems, we will all get behind those policies.” I gave him a call last week to update our discussion and he said, “The good news is we […]
South Korea: No Room For Complacency
By John Richardson I have long loved South Korea, ever since I first visited the country back in the late 1990s. The sheer guts, determination and get-up-and-go of South Koreans have to be admired, especially when you put this into the context of the almost total devastation inflicted by the Korean War. And South Korea continues […]
China Exports: Whatever It Takes To Boost Volumes
By John Richardson HERE is a reminder of some key facts about the Chinese economy: Investment, in the form of local real estate, infrastructure and industrial capacity accounts for around 50% of the country’s GDP. China’s total investment levels are 10-15% of GDP higher than comparable countries, such as Japan and South Korea, when they […]
The Failure Of Abenomics Should Be No Surprise
By John Richardson The steepest decline in Japanese industrial production since March 2011 has shocked some commentators. We cannot understand why. “Industrial output dropped 3.3% in June from May, the trade ministry said today in Tokyo, more than twice the median forecast for a 1.2% contraction in a Bloomberg News survey of 31 economists. The […]
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