Word: importance
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Promotional Blitz. Finally, the President also agreed to redeem a campaign pledge to the maritime unions, whose members provided generous financial support (an estimated $6 million) for his campaign. Carter agreed to back legislation that would require at least 9.5% of all U.S. oil imports to be shipped in American-flag vessels by 1982. Greater use of the more expensively operated U.S. ships would eventually create jobs for 2.500 additional U.S. seafarers and. at the very least, add $110 million in increased transport costs to the nation's oil import bill...
...enthusiast in a different manner. Some 20 years after Admiral Perry revealed Japan to the world, an American university professor taught some of his students how to play baseball. Since then, the nation has been hooked. Each year, some 12 million fans jam its stadiums to eat an American import called the hotto dogu and scream "ganbare" (Let's go) as Japan's twelve professional teams battle each other with the ferocity of a samurai...
Spearheading the import drive are the Japanese automakers. Toyota's models are the biggest sellers, Datsun's second and Honda's third. Volkswagen, once the undisputed leader in auto imports, now ranks fourth-even though sales were up 80% in May over a year earlier. Part of the reason for the imports' jolting success is that they are generally small compacts, lean on fuel and relatively comfortable to drive. One senior Detroit auto executive wondered last week "how the foreigners can produce that much value for the money." Some industry analysts think that foreign-car sales...
Another reason for the success of imports is that U.S. automakers have dealt in the small-car market with their left hands. They have done little more than scale down existing models to meet the challenge of foreign competition. Chevrolet's Vega has been a dud; the Chevette is cramped and lacks style, and so does Ford's Pinto, despite its healthy sales. Detroit does share indirectly in the import boom through sales of autos built abroad by subsidiaries or affiliates of U.S. companies. That includes such models as the Dodge Colt, the Plymouth Arrow and the Buick...
...crops is rapidly being frittered away by overcultivation, mismanagement and carelessness. Soil erosion may cost the world as much as 2.5 billion metric tons of soil a year, and has already reduced much of North Africa -once the Roman Empire's granary -to desert areas that must import most of their food. Improper irrigation, which can lead to salinization and waterlogging, is taking another 200,000 to 300,000 hectares (500,000 to 750,000 acres) of land out of production each year. As the world's population and demand for food rise, these soil losses become increasingly...