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Chemicals and the Economy

G-20 in self-congratulatory mood

When the G-20 met last April, it issued a Communiqué containing just 688 words. Its Pittsburgh meeting over the weekend produced a Leader’s Statement containing 9292 words. “More” does generally not mean “better” when it comes to writing action plans. Instead, the document simply seems to be a catch-all of comments from the 20 leaders. […]

Central banks warn on likely growth rates

Coincidentally, both the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England yesterday signalled the probable end of the ‘the recession’ yesterday. But as the blog noted last month, statistics don’t tell the whole story. The issue is that economists usually define recession as simply being 2 or more quarters of negative growth. Automatically, therefore, any […]

Destocking follows previous recession experience

Destocking is currently a key issue for the chemical industry. The above chart, from Andrew Sentance of the Bank of England, provides some useful clues as to where we are in the cycle. It shows current performance (the green line) versus the history of stock levels in the recessions of the early 1980’s (blue) and […]

Most economic forecasts are too optimistic

Prof David Blanchflower, of the Bank of England, is not optimistic that the current recession will end soon. He notes that “few macro-economists actually spotted the greatest financial crisis in a hundred years”. And in the chart above, showing OECD forecasts for the UK economy during the last recession, he demonstrates that forecasters kept predicting […]

The impact of banking crises

The blog has been searching the websites of the major central banks, such as the IMF, World Bank, Federal Reserve and Bank of England, for research on the history of credit crises. Several readers, including Paul Noble of Parsons Brinckerhoff, have also kindly forwarded helpful studies. The most comprehensive study that it has found analysed […]

Bank of England cuts to 3%, warns on deflation

UK interest rates have just been cut by 1.5% to 3%. They were last at this level in 1955. The Bank of England had been very concerned about inflation, currently at 5.2%, compared to a target of 2%. But the Bank now sees no danger from inflation in the future. Instead, it is warning that […]

A fistful of dollars

The US Federal Reserve used just to manage monetary policy for the 12 ‘districts’ of the USA. But now, it is going global. First, it opened unlimited “swap lines” with other G7 countries through the European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan, as well as the Swiss National Bank. Then, […]

Europe, N America, China cut interest rates

The blog welcomes the co-ordinated action by central banks, including the US Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, and the Banks of England and China, in cutting interest rates. Anything that suggests policymakers are starting to get their act together is good news. But as the blog has argued since February, cutting interest rates in today’s […]

Bank of England warns on inflation

Andrew Sentance of the Bank of England has issued a very clear analysis of current oil and commodity price movements. It rejects the view that these have been primarily caused by speculators. Instead, it points to increasing demand, and lack of supply, as the main causes of today’s higher prices. The slide above sums up […]

High inflation, or global downturn?

Central bankers had it easy over the past decade. Now they are going to have to earn their money. Inflation is rising rapidly, and growth rates are falling. But unfortunately, as I first noted back in March, they still seem to have differing ideas about what policies will best counter these twin challenges.

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