Word: crude
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Eighteen months ago, when the world was awash in asset bubbles, there was perhaps no market more overheated than commodities. Prices of everything from iron ore to palm oil to corn reached dizzying heights. Crude oil nearly quintupled in five years; rice tripled in only five months. World Bank President Robert Zoellick called rising food and oil prices a "man-made catastrophe" that had the potential to quickly erase years of progress in overcoming poverty. Protests and riots over high prices for necessities erupted across the developing world. Pundits dusted off Malthusian theories that the planet was physically unable...
...eight months after it officially opened. The most visible turnaround has been in oil. A year ago, Western governments were pleading with Persian Gulf oil states to ramp up production as oil sped toward $150 a barrel; today, OPEC is twisting off the spigot in an attempt to support crude prices around $50. The International Energy Agency expects oil demand to fall this year at the steepest rate since the early 1980s. Some experts believe prices may stay depressed for years to come, due to greater energy efficiency, technological improvements in oil production and greater availability of alternative fuels such...
...food as their economies get bigger and their citizens richer. Palm oil prices, for example, have been rising of late partly because demand from India, with its population of 1 billion, is holding up. In March, China imported a record amount of iron ore and coal, while imports of crude oil hit a 12-month high. The binge is being fueled in part by optimism that Beijing's $565 billion stimulus program will drive a turnaround in the sagging economy. "After a brief pause, China's appetite for natural resources has returned to buoyant levels," Jing Ulrich, chairman of China...
...seems to be expanding. Luxemburg-based ArcelorMittal, the world's biggest steelmaker, is slashing output by half, for instance. Yet state-supported Chinese steel companies are actually ramping up both capacity and output, according to Chinese government figures. The China Iron and Steel Association says that the production of crude steel has risen since December, from 1.2 million tons a day to 1.4 million. (China's annual excess production capacity is already about 100 million tons, more than the annual U.S. steel output...
...insight. What is not true is that we have to choose between quantitative and non-quantitative approaches to politics. Bolduc’s essay establishes a false binary—“These professors ditched The Federalist Papers for Excel spreadsheets years ago.” In this crude thinking, no course could (or should) have both...