By John Richardson COST cutting and disciplined operating rates have been two of the factors that have helped maintain European cracker and polyethylene (PE) profitability at pretty healthy levels since the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008. So too has the European cluster concept, where producers can share ethylene via pipelines and where […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China Govt Confirms Post-CNY Labour Shortages
The great news behind rising labour costs: Shan Dalin, pictured with his family, is a crane operator from Southwest China’s Guizhou province who has worked in eastern Zhejiang province for 10 years. In 2012, Shan’s monthly income rose to 2,800 yuan ($449) from lower than 2,000 yuan in 2008. [Photo/Xinhua] By John Richardson The […]
Ten Solutions For The Global Economy
By John Richardson LAST week we highlighted how a Boston Consulting Group study has reached many of the same conclusions as our e-book, Boom, Gloom & The New Normal, on the fault lines in the global economy. Similarly, many of the ten solutions suggested in the study are in line with what we think needs […]
Ponzi Scheme Economics
By John Richardson AN important study by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) underlines most of the views we put forward in our e-book, Boom Gloom & The New Normal. “The developed world’s Ponzi scheme is caused by record-high levels of public and private debt. And it is exacerbated by huge unfunded liabilities that will be […]
“You Can’t Turn Back The Demographic Tide”
By John Richardson Our argument ument that demographics drive demand is gaining greater traction. Demographic challenges apply both to developed markets, where populations are rapidly ageing, and to emerging markets such as China, which confronts ithe consequences of its disastrous one-child policy. The slide above shows rising life expectancy – just one of the […]
Average Babyboomer Turns 55
Today is a day for celebration, as it marks the day that the average Western BabyBoomer, born in 1958, will join the New Old 55+ generation! This is a truly remarkable moment. Even 100 years ago, as the chart above shows, this generation simply didn’t exist. Western life expectancy (green column) was just 46 years […]
US Manufacturing Exam Question
A lot more than just the standard Model T.,,, Source of picture: cCSU Archv/Everett/Rex Features By John Richardson THE question on my exam paper this Monday morning is what this outstanding article by the author, Charles Fishman, in The Atlantic magazine, means for the petrochemical industry. We have all become used to the idea of the […]
Demographics And Saudi Arabia
Source of picture: Wikimedia Commons By John Richardson EIGHTY percent of Saudi Arabian families get by on incomes of less than $3,300 a month, whereas Saudi Aramco makes $900m of profits every day, says Leslie McCune, managing director of the UK-based chemicals logistics consultancy, Chemical Management Resources Ltd. But he adds that in order to […]
New Business Mindset Needed
By John Richardson THE global chemicals industry became used to healthy and steady rates of demand growth during the “Great Moderation” in the West, before the 2008 crisis. As fellow blogger Paul Hodges wrote in January of this year: “Executives could usefully spend time debating whether ethylene growth rates might be 4.2%, or perhaps 4.5%, […]
South Korea’s Demographic Challenges
By John Richardson SOUTH Korea serves as another example of how demographics are reshaping Asian economic prospects. “By 2018, 14% of its population will be over 65, making it officially an ‘aged society.’ That is six years sooner than Japan and more than a century before France, according to the Samsung Economic Research Institute,” writes […]
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