Word: petroleum
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Even before the Arabs' oil embargo, forecasters almost unanimously predicted a slowdown for the U.S. economy next year. Now fears are growing that the oil crisis could lead the nation closer to a recession, with some rises in unemployment, heightened inflation and widespread shortages of vital petroleum-based products...
...Economists for their evaluation of the situation. The members were quick to stress that they were now peering into a future that was at best murky. For one thing, no one is certain how long the Arab oil squeeze will last or of the exact size of the petroleum gap (estimates range from 2.5 million bbl. to 3 million bbl. daily of crude and refined products). Most important, there are no adequate models that might foretell how the U.S. economy will react to the first energy scarcity in its history. Explains Alan Greenspan, a consultant who frequently advises the Nixon...
INFLATION. Consumer prices will rise higher than earlier anticipated. Robert Nathan, a private consultant, believes that they will advance 7% or more, up 2 percentage points from his previous forecast. The reason: shortages of not only oil but also such essential petroleum-based products as plastics, synthetic fibers and fertilizer. The University of Minnesota's Walter W. Heller agrees that the petroleum squeeze alone will add 1% or more to inflation, but he pegs the consumer-price increases at 6% to 7% in the first half of 1974, dropping to 5% to 6% in the second half...
...dollar's value because the U.S. depends much less on the Arabs' oil than the Europeans and Japanese do. As oil becomes scarcer and costlier, their industries stand to be hit painfully, and they will have to spend proportionately more than the U.S. for imported petroleum. These factors will damage their payments balances and weaken their currencies. As foreign currencies decline, the dollar should become relatively stronger. Alan Murray, a vice president of New York's First National City Bank, predicts that the dollar will float up another 10% next year...
...Western American Bank in London, Joseph E. Baird has been, in the words of one high officer of an international corporation, "an innovator with a lot of nerve," who made some investments and loans "that a conservative banker would not have got into." He also made loans to Occidental Petroleum of Los Angeles, and he caught the sharp eye of Occidental's chairman, Armand Hammer. Still active at 75, Hammer has announced that 39-year-old Baird will become the president, chief operating officer and No. 2 man in the company...