Word: imported
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...most lucrative fields of endeavor: Washington. At issue is the Nixon Administration's policy, now in the formative stage, for dealing with the flow of cheap foreign oil into the U.S. The report of a Cabinet Task Force recommending changes in the current system of restrictive import quotas is expected to land on the President's desk this week. Its contents are officially secret, but enough details have already leaked to roil the industry and start what promises to develop into a fierce debate...
There is no doubt that the quota system is in need of drastic change. Permits to import oil are handed out by the Government to individual U.S. refiners. The system of distributing permits is wide open to favoritism, and the companies that get permits can make fortunes by selling cheap foreign oil at the U.S. price. That gives refiners a reason to resist changes in the system...
Levy contends that carefully liberalized quotas would bring down prices but would not present as many problems as a tariff system. Higher quotas, however, might just increase the size of the unearned bonanza awarded annually to U.S. refiners in import permits...
...part, the Administration made the gesture of easing U.S. restrictions on trade with China. For the first time since the Communists won control of the mainland in 1949, U.S. businessmen may engage in nonstrategic trade with China. Though the ban on direct commercial import of Chinese goods remains, U.S. firms are free to buy Chinese products, and sell their own to China, through foreign-based subsidiaries or through intermediaries in other countries. U.S. citizens abroad will be able to bring back unlimited quantities of Chinese-made items, which will be subject only to normal tourist duties...
...less highly trained "paramedical" workers to perform simple functions like applying bandages and giving injections. Federal purchases could be more adroitly timed to take advantage of favorable prices. Government regulatory agencies might abolish minimum rates for freight shipments and other transportation, and permit competition to take over again. Oil-import quotas, which cost gasoline consumers at least $4 billion a year, could be revised or scrapped. Fair-trade laws, which place floors under the prices of some goods, might also be repealed. These are the sort of moves that economists as far apart as Walter Heller and Milton Friedman agree...