On the other hand, if the industry scraps all of its smaller and older plants, Credit Suisse estimates, steam coal demand would drop by 15% to 30%, or as much as 324 million tons a year, while gas demand would increase 8% to 16%, or as much as 3 trillion cubic feet a year.

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However, as the economy regains steam and loan demand increases, those excess reserves will enter the marketplace and increase nominal spending and prices.

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While its drives were a boon in 1995 and 1996, when the internal hard drives of most PCs were much smaller, ever-bigger hard drives have taken a lot of steam out of demand.

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"Despite the still tepid external demand, the domestic-driven restocking process is likely to add steam to China's ongoing recovery in the coming months, " said Qu Hongbin, chief China economist at HSBC.

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By comparing sales data to advertising spending over time, Nissan can plot a demand curve showing the points at which a campaign starts to gain and lose steam.

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