Helping you navigate the new normal
Western central bankers are convinced reflation and economic growth are finally underway as a result of their $14tn stimulus programmes. But the best leading indicator for the global economy – capacity utilisation (CU%) in the global chemical industry – is saying they are wrong. The CU% has an 88% correlation with actual GDP growth, far […]
China’s polyester industry, like many others, is already preparing to shut down ahead of September’s G20 Summit in Hangzhou, to reduce pollution levels. The phenomenon even has its own Wikipedia page, APEC Blue, to describe the moment in November 2014 when Beijing suddenly saw blue sky for the whole of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit meeting. It […]
Major change is already underway in China, with potentially enormous implications for all of us. Corruption is being stamped out via a policy of ‘shock and awe’ Similarly, wasteful lending is under attack in both the official and the so-called ‘shadow banking’ sectors Thirdly, pollution is being tackled by literally ‘sending in the bulldozers‘ to […]
President Jiang Zemin inherited a difficult economic and political situation when taking power in 1993, as did Deng in 1977 and current president Xi last year. Jiang had to set in motion China’s second economic cycle of the post-Mao era, or risk seeing the country fall back into poverty and the political turmoil of another Cultural Revolution. Similarly today, […]