A thousand years ago, the Viking King Canute had himself carried into the sea by his courtiers. He was the most powerful king of his time. But by showing that he could not turn back the incoming waves, he hoped they would understand that he was not all-powerful. This is a lesson still to be […]
Chemicals and the Economy
Crude oil and stock markets begin to diverge
Financial markets have been fired up over the past 2 years via the arrival of high volume computerised trading. This now dominates market action. And until recently, the US Federal Reserve was happy to finance this activity, via its $600bn QE2 programme. The Fed’s aim was to generate inflation, and so avoid the risk of […]
A final push on the piece of string
Yesterday the US Fed cut interest rates to an all-time low of 0% – 0.25%. Once again, Wall Street celebrated with a major rally, even though the move had more symbolic than practical purpose. It made it appear that the authorities were “doing something”, even though the evidence of previous rate cuts indicates they have […]
‘Grey hair and good advice matter’
The credit crunch began a year ago. At that time, the blog was very much in a minority when worrying that it might turn into something big enough to impact ‘the real economy’. A year later, it is fascinating to review the crunch’s impact so far, and how people’s attitudes have changed:
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