J.P. Sartre's premonitory assertion that "all war is Manichaeism" has been vividly confirmed by the unrest that has swept the world over the past two years.
For almost two years now, chaos has been spreading, and sorting the wheat from the chaff is becoming a more perilous balancing act with each passing day. Almost 80 years ago, the world promised itself, hand on heart, "never again". Despite more than 50 million victims, here we are, back on the same foundations, with nauseating sophisms surfing on the abject.
The world economy is feeling the pinch, while oil prices are rising, raising fears of a third shock on the scale of a conflagration in the Middle East.
Let's focus on cotton, where the situation isn't much better. For the past two weeks, our market has been on a slide that nothing seems to be able to stop for the time being.
It has to be said that the textile industry is caught between old, bygone practices and global warming. :
- - In France, the "crédit répération" scheme comes into force: the state will cover part of the cost of repairs to make clothes last longer.
- - The practice of "slow wear" is developing alongside second-hand clothes and clothing rentals.
- - The new king of fast fashion, SHEIN, is under scrutiny in the United States, suspected of using XinJiang cottons.
The group generates 10 billion dollars in America, and there's nothing disinterested about such action, at a time when the Presidents of the two countries are meeting and China is rumored to want to flood the markets with very low-cost products.
At the same time, a strike by garment workers in Bangladesh has rekindled controversy over the cost of labor in this country, which has become one of the world's textile giants. Even though an agreement has been reached, in a country still scarred by the Rana Plaza disaster, it remains largely insufficient. Moreover, the Prime Minister, anxious to maintain the dynamism of this sector vital to the country, is opposed to further wage increases, which would undermine the sector's competitiveness.
At the same time, the country's major brands continue to put pressure on local players, who need to sell their products as quickly as possible, at ever-lower prices. Wages and misery once again become variables.
The impact is above all for African cotton, for which this is the main market. Buoyed by the prices obtained in the previous campaign, the price guaranteed to growers, and therefore the cost price, is high. If the fall in prices were to continue, this could have major repercussions for growers, who would then be strangled by higher input costs.
Demand is unlikely to pick up in the immediate future, even if US export figures remain buoyant.
Despite its logistical problems, Brazil is flying from record to record export, flooding the market with cheap cottons. However, we are currently witnessing a stabilization, not to say an upturn in basis.
Turkish intermediate grades are still being offered at attractive rates, but without generating an influx of demand.
On the foreign exchange market, the dollar remains firm against all currencies, buoyed by high interest rates and a healthy US economy.
Whether in diplomatic matters or in everyday life, the new trend is towards asserted "sologamia", which may explain many of the shortcomings of our more inward-looking societies.
Source: Mambo