This week we bring readers of the Large Display Monitor our report on the ISE event in Amsterdam last week. I’m deep into forecasting for our quarterly data services and preparing for the Nuremberg conference next week, where I am making a keynote talk. The week after that, the team will be at the MWC Congress in Barcelona, so the busy start to the year has continued. On the one hand, I like to keep focused on the display industry. It’s a huge business these days with a vast range of sizes and devices from wearables to stadiums, but on the other hand, I can’t help worrying about the political and economic environment here in Europe. It always takes a lot of thought at the time that we make our forecasts!
As I write this, Germany and Greece are at loggerheads about the next step in trying to sort out the euro mess. Prior to 2008, I would simply have thought “Oh, no need to worry, it’ll all get sorted out”. However, the fragility of our economic system was highlighted in the collapse of Lehman Brothers and its aftermath.
As the Greeks and Germans go head to head, each waiting for the other to blink, and each clearly feels that it is backed by its democratic mandate, there is a genuine danger that we will go past a point of no return.
On the radio the other day, ex Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan, said that he expects a breakdown in the Eurozone. He pointed out that several countries “need to devalue” in order to get themselves out of their long term problems. However, with a single currency, that can’t happen. Greenspan sees the strains getting worse until the Eurozone breaks.
My own view, expressed here before, (and a change from my long held positive views about the Euro and that the UK should join it) is that monetary union can’t work without fiscal union and fiscal union can’t work without political union. That seems to be what Greenspan is saying as well. What we’re seeing today is the result of a lack of political union with a clash between two legitimate democratic governments with opposite points of view. There’s no clear way to arbitrate a decision between them.
Combined with the political problems in the Ukraine, where the recently agreed “cease fire” seems to be having little impact, these macroeconomic problems are a real concern.
On the other hand, ISE was very positive with vendors and buyers looking at real decisions to build new applications and systems. The quarterly result in public displays that we published this week is positive. I know that there will be much discussion in Germany next week of the opportunities for displays, especially in industrial and automotive applications and the week after will be a deluge of news about networks, apps and devices for the mobile future.
So, at the micro level, things look positive, so let’s just hope that the developments at the macro level don’t undermine the progress of the last few years!
Bob
