ALL EYES ON DUSSELDORF

摘要

ECONOMISTS, bankers, and finan-ciers use many indicators to gauge economic activity, such as interest rates, capacity utilization rates, the unemployment rate, and the PMI. One universal commodity, petroleum, provides a big cluster of economic indicators that works as a crude economic barometer. Twenty-four months ago, the crude oil price was approaching 100 dollars per barrel, more than 3,250 oil rigs were operating throughout the world, and the economies of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) were consuming 49 million barrels of it per day. At that time many other industries were doing well. Among domestic steelmakers, capacity utilization was 83 percent; in the aerospace industry, it was 82 percent; and among fabricators it were 80 percent. Most U.S. manufacturers were going full-tilt, or something close to it.