Kickstart: 'I don't think anyone has a perfect view' of what economy will bring

Here's a quick rundown of the top items Plastics News Economics Editor Bill Wood is following: interest rates, shutdowns in China, supply chains getting even more stressed, war in Ukraine, U.S. Federal Reserve policy and the value of the dollar.

And that's just scratching the surface.

It's easy to get overwhelmed, but try to avoid that sensation, Wood said during the monthly Numbers That Matter Live webcast April 26. The webcast is free to PN subscribers.

"At this point, nothing seems like it's in a freefall or in any out-of-control situation," he said.

A lot of the information out there seems to be in conflict. The U.S. is seeing its highest inflation rates in a generation, he said, but at the same time the value of the dollar "has gone almost hyperbolic, straight up." Typically, inflation would drive down the value.

Federal Reserve policymakers are having to make decisions in the midst of multiple international crises that have no precedent.

"There are a number of forces we're weighing here," he said. "I don't think anyone has a perfect view on what's going to happen."

Here are a couple of acronyms to keep in mind during the next few months: M&A and ESG.

Mergers and acquisitions, of course, is a very familiar phrase, but a new report indicates that M&As are about to heat up, especially for companies that can deliver on ESG, or environmental, social and (corporate) governance.

The vast majority — 85 percent — of executives surveyed for Kearney's Chemicals Executive M&A Report expect that businesses that can show real investments in ESG goals can expect investments.

"Previously we've seen very few real M&A deals fueled by ESG, but this is set to change dramatically," Thomas Rings, a partner at Kearney, said in a report in Sustainable Plastics. "For the first time, chemicals companies are divesting businesses because of ESG reasons."

We've written a lot of stories about the potential uses for plastic and composite parts in electric vehicles. But Richard Truett at our sister paper Automotive News has a recent story on how plastics are being used to design EVs that can slice through the wind more efficiently.

Honda Motor Corp. spent $124 million on a state-of-the-art wind tunnel in East Liberty, Ohio, that engineers are using to tweak performance and sound.

The indoor "wind" is created by a 6,700-horsepower, 5-megawatt General Electric motor that spins 12 carbon-fiber blades at 250 rpm to simulate wind speeds of up to 100 mph.

"The industry is changing. Aerodynamics and acoustics are critical components of the vehicles that are coming out, so we want to have the research that will be able to deliver those products," Chris Combs, Honda's wind tunnel strategy lead, said.