Word: downturns
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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More distressing, this latest downturn gives every indication of being permanent. Faced with languishing prices, lower profit margins and tight environmental hurdles to new exploration, the major oil companies are selling off their properties, packing up their drilling gear and heading overseas. Ten billion dollars in assets are on the block as exploration and production head for Africa, South America and the Far East, where drilling costs can be cheaper by half and government sweeteners make new ventures enticing. As the majors lay off workers and leave, those independent companies that can are following. Others are closing up shop...
...trade is the key to prosperity. The recession of 1931 became the Great Depression of 1932 after the Smoot-Hawley tariffs contributed to the collapse of world markets. Since trade accounts for 25% of U.S. GNP today, a trade war would trigger a depression that would make the present downturn look like a minor blip...
...Iacocca was right on target. What really focused our attention during this downturn was the fact that all manufacturers brought their production in line with demand. Only one group, the Japanese, didn't do it that way. Only one group steadily increased its inventory of vehicles. I'm sure those vehicles aren't going to get thrown in the ocean -- they're going to get sold. And so there's no question about it, their penetration of the U.S. market is going to increase. We told the President and his people back last March that we could see the trend...
...executives have had a tremendous downturn in their earnings for the past two years. We did not pay any bonuses at GM last year, and the way earnings are headed I can't see any bonus on the horizon this year either. But I don't really feel sorry for any Japanese chief executive. He enjoys a very good life-style. I'll be happy to exchange pay with any Japanese...
Another factor that has aggravated unease in this recession is that there has been no sense of leadership, let alone prescience, from Washington. Consumers were blindsided by the failure of the White House and most economists to foresee the length of the downturn. "Everyone was told it was going to be mild," says Stephen Levy, director of the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy. "Coming out of the gulf war, people thought it would last just two quarters." But while the economy did manage gains of 1.4% in the second quarter and 1.8% in the third...