By John Richardson THE above slide, from my speech at this year’s Gulf Petrochemical Association Forum, is a summary of much of the analysis on this blog over the past 12 months. This is another of my print-out-and-keep guides. Please pin to your chemicals company boardroom wall as you plan your scenarios for China. In […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Oil Prices Could Fall By 50% On Demand As Well As Supply Realities
By John Richardson THE REAL crude-oil supply story is becoming more commonly understood – hence, the recent declines in pricing. As I discussed in early March, before oil prices started heading south again, supply has been long for a substantial length of time. It is just that speculators chose to view the data in a different way as they […]
“War of Words” On Global Trade To Continue
By John Richardson WE remain in almost entirely uncharted territory despite the confidence of US stock markets. Take as an example the communique released after this weekend’s G20 meeting where traditional language about the importance of open global markets was dropped in order to keep the US happy. The wording of this joint statement was […]
Trump And Other Political Risks: No Room For Complacency
By John Richardson SINCE my post last week –China Becomes Dominant Superpower: Implications for Petchems – more data and analysis has emerged on the potential downside for the US if it ends up in a trade war with China. An example is this article in the New York Times: An analysis by the pro-trade Peterson Institute for International […]
Why The Political Populists Are Being Successful
By John Richardson HERE are some sobering statistics that mainstream politicians and economic policymakers should take note of: The real, inflation-adjusted incomes of two-thirds of households in 25 advanced economies were flat or fell between 2005 and 2014 compared with just 2% in the previous decade. Only in London and the southeast region of the […]
Make Global Trade War In 2017 Your Base Case Scenario
By John Richardson WE are trapped in a cycle of economic policymaking failure that has already led to a retreat in global free trade. What happens next could well be a global trade war as soon as next year. The computer models built by the US Federal Reserve said that there was no systemic risk […]
“Out Of The Box” Solutions Can Prevent Global Trade Tensions
By John Richardson IF you are a politician in the West, one approach to today’s crisis of global industrial overcapacity is heap most of the blame on China and threaten China with trade barriers. But if China doesn’t respond to your rhetoric, the problem is that you might be forced to follow through by actually […]
Fed Policies Increase Emerging Market Poverty
By John Richardson THERE are 2.8bn people – 40% of the world’s population – who live on $2-10 a day. These people are “the fragile middle”, according to the Financial Times, as they are constantly in danger of falling back into poverty. And those risks have been greatly escalated by the policies of the US Federal Reserve. Here […]
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