Why the continuing industry paranoia?

According to Malcolm Penn, chairman and CEO, Future Horizons, June’s market numbers were horribly boring. 12:12 semiconductor industry growth continued to slow, exactly as we said it would, from last month’s 45.4 to ‘only’ 38.5 percent; quarterly month-on-month numbers showed the same ‘boom-boom-bust’ unit growth dynamics and ASPs continued to recover.

There were absolutely no surprises and consequently no changes to our July IFS forecast. With the first half-year growth now up 50.4 percent versus 1H-2009, 11.1 percent versus 2H-2010, even a flat second half yields a year-on year growth rate of 28 percent bringing the chip market up to US$ 290 billion.

But... (surprise, surprise...not!) the growth rates are now slowing; they were unsustainable (yes!) and are a reflection of the equally unsustainable negative rates this time last year.

But, in today’s superficial ‘balance sheet engineering’ driven world, any hint of a slowing is enough to trigger global paranoia at the expense of common sense, logic and clear thinking; the dark side of Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston’s 1979 VisiCalc (the world’s very first spreadsheet) invention.

The question I keep asking, and don’t get an answer to is “Just what exactly is wrong with a world GDP growth outlook of ‘only’ 4.3 percent for 2011-11?