Word: importance
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Bourke's law explains the big surprise of 1976: the sales flop of the once-vaunted subcompacts. Detroit invested heavily in these small, $2,900-to-$3,400 cars as an answer to the import threat. Imports have indeed been suffering this year; their share of the U.S. auto market, more than 18% last year, has skidded below 14% so far in 1976. But the foreign makes have been hurt more by their own rising price tags than by any bumper-to-bumper competition from their U.S. rivals. American subcompacts, which captured 10% of the U.S. auto market following...
...there was indeed no evidence, for the moment at any rate, of a massive flight from sterling. Yet the sudden plunge left no doubt about just how vulnerable the buffeted pound is to the gusts of the marketplace. The slide was touched off when Swiss banks, anticipating new import controls on foreign capital moving into Switzerland, converted sterling into the solid security of Swiss francs. Even this light selling wave was enough to tip the pound into its tailspin. Said one London currency dealer gloomily: "It's not so much that people are selling pounds. Nobody wants...
Despite last week's reprieve, the long-term outlook on prices is grim, largely because of the increasing dependence of the industrialized Western nations on OPEC oil. In 1973, for example, about 38% of the U.S. oil demand was being met by crude imported from foreign countries, most of it coming from Canada and Venezuela. This year, however, the U.S. will be forced to import 40% or more of its oil, most of it from OPEC member countries. By next year the economies of the U.S. and Europe should be getting into full stride, and oil demand cannot help...
...Without a doubt, French, a Canadian import, is the Once and Future King of flashy offensive players...
Moreover, the general import figures disguise some troubles now developing. A growing number of companies-those producing such goods as chemicals, appliances and textiles, which are almost identical to those of their foreign competitors-are being hurt by the rising cost of their exports. Grundig AG, a consumer electronics maker already fighting cheap Japanese products, reports a drastic drop in sales to Britain and Italy. BASF, the giant chemicals producer, is paring prices and profit margins to hold its international markets...