Word: direness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Pushing the relatively weak Russian economy to keep up with the American arms buildup (redoubled in the '80s) and underwrite expansionism has led the Soviet Union into dire straits and the desire to lower the level of the arms race--an option made possible since U.S. policy is committed to the "containment" and not the "rollback" of Communism...
...really living with a false sense of security," warns George Mitchell, an independent Houston oilman. "We're heading for deep trouble." What provokes Mitchell's dire prediction is the shriveled condition of the U.S. oil-drilling industry, which he believes has made the country seriously vulnerable to a future energy emergency. "We're losing ground faster than we might have predicted even a few months ago," he says. Adds John Watson, another Houston oilman: "All the people have left, rigs have been dismantled, the financial industry has turned its back on oil and gas. It would take...
What would happen if foreign producers cut off the U.S. supply of crude, as OPEC did in the 1970s? In the short run, the U.S. would not experience dire shortages. A Commerce Department study found that in the event of war, the country's demand for fuel could be met by domestic production and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Created 13 years ago, the reserve is now up to 515 million bbl., equivalent to about three months' total consumption, stored in salt caverns along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana...
...restore the confidence of thrift depositors, some of whom have withdrawn their savings in fear of the system's insolvency. In fact, the Administration secretly feared a long-shot possibility that the drama of its bailout might spark a run on S & L deposits. To prepare for that dire prospect, senior White House officials and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan met in the Roosevelt Room of the White House the night before Bush's plan was made public. Greenspan agreed that the Fed would stand ready to pump billions of dollars in emergency loans into threatened thrifts...
...excitement over the changed composition of the Corporation should not obscure the fact that the body is in dire need of fundamental reform. The Corporation remains a secretive, undemocratic body, subject to checks or input from anyone in the University community in theory alone...