Word: oil
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...third day, the whole conference moved into Yamani's hotel suite for a marathon twelve-hour session. While the Saudi minister padded back and forth serving English tea, and his guests munched on Algerian dates, an idea was floated to lift Arabian light oil to $26 as a new floor price, but fix a ceiling at $30. This was rejected by Libya, Algeria and Iran...
With OPEC in disarray and vulnerable, bold action by oil-importing nations to cut their dependence on foreign petroleum cannot be easily countered by cartel members. Operating through OPEC, their monopolistic, price-propping has placed an enormous and continuing burden on oil consumers everywhere. Economist Otto Eckstein, president of Data Resources Inc., estimates that OPEC'S policies have been bloating the world's oil bill by $40 billion to $60 billion a year. Says he: "We need that cartel like we need a tourniquet around our necks. Any form of free competition is going to lead...
Besides stricter conservation, one vital policy for the U.S. is to boost the use of coal and the production of syntheic fuels, including shale oil. The U.S. could be producing as much as 6 million bbl. of "synfuels" a day by 1990, equal to about 75% of all current imports. Jimmy Carter wants the financing for his own more modest synfuels program to come from his proposed windfall profits tax; it would be levied on the increased revenues that U.S. oil companies have been earning since price controls on oil began to be phased out last June. But Congress must...
Consumers will lead the way down. They are running out of cash, credit and savings; also, they will have to pay much more for oil-related goods and services as varied as food and rents (tractors and furnaces burn fuel). So consumers will be obliged to buy less of almost everything else, notably cars, appliances and other durable goods. Squeezed by tight money, the construction rate of new homes and apartments could go as low as 1.2 million by March. As demand wanes, businessmen will further reduce production and inventories. But by late fall or early winter, their shelves...
...most discouraging aspect of rising oil prices, said Okun, is that the recession will only temporarily and modestly constrain inflation. At very best, the rate of price increases will come down to 8%. After the 1974-75 recession, inflation was 5%, which at that time was considered "intolerable, horrible and unacceptable." Indexing, which automatically raises wages and pensions along with the price index, is not a cure but a disease that institutionalizes inflation, added Okun. He estimates that "if all payrolls were indexed instead of the roughly 15% that are now, the consumer price index would have risen more than...