Are we seeing just a dip in economic growth? Or are we at the start of a downturn that may run for months, or even years? The answer to this question lies in the US, which still accounts for 25% of global GDP, and where US consumer spending is 70% of US GDP. Optimists maintain […]
Chemicals and the Economy
Beggar my neighbour
English children have a card game called ‘Beggar my Neighbour’, where the aim is to win all the cards from your opponents. Central bankers seem to be learning its rules, and applying them to currency trading. OPEC’s weekend summit showed it is clearly worried that it will have a losing hand if oil remains priced […]
US housing worsens
Its now 3 months since we first saw the impact of the subprime crisis. At that time, the main impact was on poor Americans, who were losing their homes. Then, in August, banks stopped lending to each other, causing credit conditions to tighten. By September, central banks were fighting fires on several fronts: • Injecting […]
The end of the prologue
The report in today’s ‘Financial Times’ that Barclays Bank has lost ‘several hundred million dollars’, means that the UK has now joined every other global financial centre in suffering from the US subprime mortgage crisis. The news followed Friday’s 5% drop in the value of Bank of China’s shares, after it revealed it held $9.7bn […]
Jump to page: