The blog has a simple measure for the effectiveness of international meetings. It counts the number of words in the communiqué. The logic behind this is that when people are really focused, they get down to business. When they waffle, then you know nothing will happen. The history of the recent G-20 meetings seems to […]
Chemicals and the Economy
Obama’s BP attack will impact chemicals
For the past 20 years, the chemical industry has been making steady progress in improving its environmental, health and safety performance. More recently, security has been added to the list of key items covered by the voluntary Responsible Care initiative, which covers c90% of chemical production. Now, however, this enormously important activity has moved into […]
Volcker returns
Sometimes, a picture is worth 1000 words. That’s the case with this photo (used by most of the world’s major news media), showing President Obama with former US Fed Governor Paul Volcker by his side. Volcker’s re-emergence is the first real sign of a serious shift in policy towards the financial sector. And the blog […]
Obama proposes $90bn US bank tax
One by one, Western political leaders are coming to the conclusion that taxes on the banks need to rise. Last month, the UK proposed a 50% ‘super-tax’ on bonuses, on the grounds that “investment banks are making exceptional profits as a result of the intervention of government“. At the time, the blog thought it spotted […]
California hands out IOUs instead of cash
Source: Wall Street Journal Everybody’s favourite Christmas film is ‘Its a Wonderful Life’, in which the hero rescues a failing US bank during the Depression. But until today, the blog had never realised that a major role model for the plot-line came from Chicago in 1932. Nouriel Roubini’s blog notes that the city saw the […]
Gasoline markets slip, financial markets stumble
Yesterday’s financial market action was very revealing. As Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix perceptively describes it, “liquidation on gasoline led to a correction in crude oil, which in turn pressured equity markets”. The problem is that financial markets now seem to be in circular mode: • Speculation about tighter oil markets has led to a belief […]
G-20 prepares for London meeting
Leaders of the G-20 represent 85% of the global economy, and 65% of world population. Set up by Finance Ministers after the Asian crisis in 1997/8, they first met at Heads of Government level in the USA last November. Sadly, although their communiqué was filled with earnest promises, few of these have since been enacted. […]
Global economy to shrink in 2009
The world’s major financial institutions become more pessimistic each time they report on the economic outlook. 6 weeks ago, the blog noted that the IMF expected “the global economy to come to a virtual standstill in 2009”. Today, the World Bank is forecasting that “the global economy is likely to shrink this year for the […]
“An economic crisis of historic proportions”
President-elect Obama has become the latest world leader to “get it”, as his wife Michelle once remarked. For far long, politicians seemed to believe their platitudes about the “underlying strength” of their national economies. This meant their proposed remedies were reactive, and usually unworkable. More recently, the blog has also worried that the USA faced […]
Obama wins, Bush stays in office
Sen. Barack Obama duly won a landslide victory in yesterday’s US Presidential election, but will not take office until 20 January. I suggested last month in ICB, that “this delay, at such a critical moment, is not good news for chemical companies or for their customers”. The blog therefore congratulates the new President, and expresses […]
Jump to page: