2013 wasn’t a good year for plant reliability. The blog’s 6-monthly survey of force majeure reports in ICIS news shows: There were 386 reports of force majeures in 2013 This was very similar to the 391 level seen in 2010 It also reverses the decline seen in 2012 after the record 495 reports in 2011 This is a worrying […]
Chemicals and the Economy
Beijing smog makes it “almost uninhabitable for human beings”
Chapter 6 of Boom, Gloom and the New Normal in October 2011 was one of the first detailed analyses to highlight the way in which pollution was rapidly moving up the political agenda in China. Controversial at the time, it warned: “Recent growth in China and India has come at a price: Poor air quality, chronic water […]
US housing recovery stalls as Boomers head for retirement
“Recent economic reports suggest a bleaker picture for housing…. Some of the weakness reflects the cold weather in much of the country. However, higher home prices and mortgage rates are taking a toll on affordability.” This was the sober report yesterday from the chairman of the authoritative S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index, adding that “the strongest part […]
US PVC exports fail to grow in 2013, despite shale gas boost
Trade data for net US PVC exports seems to be trying to tell us something very important about the current state of the global economy. As the chart shows, based on data from Global Trade Information Services: Net exports failed to grow in 2013 (red column) versus 2012 (black) and were only up 2% versus 2011 […]
“Reservations are no longer necessary at many high-end restaurants”
Think back a moment to September 16 2008. Newly released transcripts analysed by the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times reveal for the first time what was really going on that day at the world’s most important central bank. Lehman Bros, one of Wall Street’s largest investment banks, had just gone bust. Merrill Lynch, another giant, had […]
China’s rural areas need basic goods, environmental clean-up
Average incomes in China are very low by Western standards, and certainly not “middle-class” as the blog discussed yesterday. It is also easy to forget that almost half the population still lives in rural areas. Official data shows their incomes have shown major growth over the past 20 years, but are still less than a third of urban incomes today. The chart […]
China’s urban consumers depend on property ‘wealth effect’
One of the great myths of modern times is that China is now full of middle class people with Western levels of consumption. Nothing could be further from the truth. Annual per capita incomes have certainly soared over the past two decades. But the main impact has been to lift people out of absolute poverty, […]
BBC reports ‘How China Fooled the World’
Last night, the BBC ran a 1 hour documentary by its senior editor Robert Peston, who won countless awards for his work during the subprime crisis. It completely confirmed the arguments put forward by the blog in recent months about the scale of the economic crisis now facing China. The BBC introduced the documentary as follows: […]
China’s lending bubble could now lead to zero GDP growth
China has been primarily responsible for driving global growth since the Crisis began in 2008. Auto sales, for example, would have seen negative growth world-wide without China. And auto manufacturing is the world’s largest manufacturing industry. The chemical industry has been in a similar position. Whilst China is also now responsible for nearly 50% of global […]
“The dog ate my homework”: excuses for economic slowdown
There were never any excuses from policymakers during the BabyBoomer-led SuperCycle from 1983 – 2007. The Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, came to be styled ‘The Maestro’. Whilst the Governor of the Bank of England argued that his efforts had created the NICE decade of Non-Inflationary Constant Expansion. Central bankers came to be seen as wise […]