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Chemicals and the Economy

The blog’s 6th birthday

This week is the blog’s 6th birthday.  Remarkably, its audience remains extremely loyal, with around half reading it weekly and a quarter on a daily basis.  It is also global, now being read in 150 countries.  The top 10 countries come from all major regions – the USA, UK, Germany, India, China, Netherlands, Belgium, Singapore, Japan and France. […]

Interest rate rises add new risks for global economy

The past week has seen major increases in global interest rates.  This would be good news if it was due to a strong global economic recovery.  But it isn’t.  Yesterday, Q1 US GDP growth was revised down to 1.8%, for example.  Instead, it seems to reflect investors’ fear that central banks may be losing control of the […]

US, EU auto sales hit demographic roadblock

Central bank policymakers and financial analysts are seemingly convinced that the US economy is already seeing a strong recovery, whilst Europe is just about to resume growth.  But evidence from the auto market, the largest manufacturing industry, gives a much more mixed outlook. The chart above shows combined sales in these two major Western markets […]

China interest rates hit 28% as property bubble targeted

China’s new leadership are in a very difficult position.  They have inherited an economy that has been run on stimulus programmes for the past 5 years. And as the head of the country’s largest developer, China Vanke, has warned, “If the bubbles are not controlled, the result will be catastrophic.” This follows his March warning that […]

Time to end the ‘tyranny of consensus’ on future growth

Human beings don’t like change, and they don’t like argument. They prefer to assume, whenever possible, that life will continue in a straight line. This preference is especially common in large companies. Change for them means having to develop new products and services, enter risky new markets, and have potentially awkward conversations with investors. But […]

New website

The blog is approaching its 6th birthday.  And as you will have noticed, its layout has changed today, giving it a new look and feel. Nothing stands still in the field of IT.   In the early days, for example, the technology would not allow pictures or graphs to be posted.  More recently, a major frustration has been the […]

Working women changed Western economy after 1970

Household consumption is 60% of western GDP. So any economic forecast that simply assumes it will always increase is likely to prove badly wrong as BabyBoomers move into retirement. Of equal importance is the impact of women’s role in the workforce. They added a major boost to demand during the Supercycle, as dual-income households became […]

US PVC exports stall, despite shale gas cost advantage

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make her drink. That seems to be the critical message from the current state of US PVC export demand. This should be booming, based on the cost advantage provided by shale gas. But reality is different, as the chart based on Global Trade Information Services […]

US consumer sentiment confirms Boom/Gloom Index weakness

It is now 4 years since the blog launched its IeC Boom/Gloom Index, as a way of measuring the difference between sentiment and economic reality. Its purpose then was as follows: “Markets are driven by two factors, sentiment and fundamentals: • Fundamentals can be followed by analysing hard data. In chemical markets, for example, key […]

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