- Written by Robert McCaffrey Editorial Director, Global Gypsum Magazine
Those of you with a good memory will recall the havoc of the Asian Crisis of 1997-1998. Over-borrowed Asian countries were forced to devalue their currencies compared to the dollar, following a bubble originating in property development and inflated asset prices, stoked by relatively cheap dollar-denominated borrowing. Over-capacity in many industries, built on the back of over-enthusiastic production expansion in the expectation of spectacular future growth, combined with a collapse in demand to calamitously unbalance markets: Building materials were especially badly-hit, with some materials taking a decade or more to grow back to a situation of supply-demand balance. Only towards the end of the 2000s were some Asian markets seriously thinking about new production facilities - after their break-neck expansion of the 1990s.
- Written by Robert McCaffrey, Editorial Director, Global Gypsum Magazine
I have just returned from a short trip to Bergen in Norway, to visit an old university friend who now works over there. The region around Bergen, including Øygarden, the Jotenheimen Mountains and Balestrand (the architecture of which was 'borrowed' by Disney for the film 'Frozen') was awe-inspiringly beautiful, but the prices were eye-blisteringly high - just to look at a restaurant menu might leave scorch marks on your retina.
- Written by Robert McCaffrey, Editorial director, Global Gypsum Magazine
I think that it all began with those cutesy ads for the Apple iPod - the ones with a funky-looking youth in silhouette, wearing a very obvious pair of white 'ear-bud' ear-phones. They glorified personal choice, while at the same time closing the user off from interaction with other people. Listening to music while walking or running somehow eradicates part of the humanity of the wearer - they become 'apart.' I know - I've said 'Keep going' or 'well done' to any number of competitors in running races and been completely ignored because they were in their own little world. Not least of the anti-social effects of the iPod and its ilk is the pernicious tinny noise that they leak into the ears of other people (and the insidious devaluation of the pleasures of the noises of the real world - for example the wonder of bird song - and of the ultimate non-noise: silence).
- Written by Robert McCaffrey Managing Editor, Global Gypsum Magazine
A lost decade sounds like a throwback to the drug-addled 1970s, when rockers lost their minds and their memories through over-indulgence in drugs, booze and hookers. Some say that if you can remember the 1960s, then you weren't really there. However, the proverbial 'lost decade' of this month's Last Word is less about LSD and 'free love,' and is more about the less sexy concepts of deflation, productivity gaps and economics.
- Written by Robert McCaffrey Editor, Global Gypsum Magazine
My younger daughter Jemima (a teenager at last) has recently completed a homework assignment on hydroelectric power in Brazil (as you do). It's actually on YouTube.1 I was able to supply her with a snippet of information that I had recently gleaned, that parts of Brazil are suffering from severe drought, with some reservoirs at only 5% of their capacity. In fact, the drought has been so bad that some of the Carnival parades that take place in Brazil at this time of year have been scaled back (such as the most famous, in Rio de Janeiro) or cancelled altogether, with towns saying that they couldn't spare the water to clean the streets after the parades.
