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From the
AmericaS
83
J
anuary
2009
www.read-tpt.com›
• An interesting slant on the Obama accession was contributed
by Red Cavaney, a Washington-based executive with
ConocoPhillips (Houston), who suggests that the new president
has a ‘Nixon-to-China’ opportunity on energy. The Chronicle
recalled that President Richard M Nixon’s credentials as a
fervent anti-communist
“gave him political cover for making
historic overtures in 1972 that warmed US relations with
communist China.”
Mr Cavaney, a former head of the American Petroleum Institute,
took note of perceptions that Mr Obama shares the jaundiced
attitude of fellow Democrats toward the oil industry. This might
enable him to forge the kind of consensus on energy issues
that has eluded policymakers, notably his predecessor George
W Bush who began his career in the oil business in Midland,
Texas, in 1975.
The economy
IMF: the United States is leading the
world into recession
Together with many private economists, the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) believes that the US economy will probably contract in
the last quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, meeting the
traditional criterion for a recession: a growth rate of 3 per cent or
below for two successive quarters. The last recession in the US
was in 2001.
The IMF, in its World Economic Outlook released 8 October,
also forecast world economic growth to slow to 3.9 per cent in
2008 and to decelerate further to 3 per cent in 2009, marking the
worst showing since 2002. An independent organization based in
Washington, the IMF is comprised of 185 countries pledged to work
together promote global monetary cooperation.
“The world economy is now entering a major downturn in the face
of the most dangerous shock in mature financial markets since the
1930’s,”
said the report, which was released just prior to a pair of
top-level gatherings in Washington: the IMF-World Bank annual
meetings, and a meeting of the finance ministers of the Group of
Seven industrialized nations (G-7).
The IMF also offered these projections of slowed year-on-year
economic growth:
Germany: 1.8 per cent in 2008, down from 2.5 per cent in 2007
France: 0.8 per cent, down from 2.2 per cent
Britain: 1 per cent, down from 3 per cent
Canada: 0.7 per cent, down from 2.7 per cent
Japan: 0.7 per cent, down from 2.1 per cent
In marked contrast to these estimates, the IMF said it looked for
global powerhouses China and India to see growth in 2008 of 9.7
per cent and 7.9 per cent, respectively. While impressive in the
East-West context, these rates would still mark regression from the
blistering performances of 2007.
The IMF expects Russia’s economy to be another such success
story: growth of 7 per cent in 2008, down from 8.1 per cent in 2007.