Word: lessing
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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This process, known as petrodollar recycling, has pushed up the debts of the less developed nations to $300 billion. Many nations are so weighed down with debt that bankers are growing wary of lending them more. Yet if they cannot borrow, poor countries will have trouble importing more oil. Without energy, their economies will slump, exports will shrivel, and they may default on existing loans. At the extreme, that would threaten some of the lending banks with failure, and the U.S. Federal Reserve would have to push the money printing presses into overdrive to bail them out by advancing huge...
...dependent on foreign oil. Under the circumstances, there is no guarantee that economic disruption can be avoided no matter what steps the nation takes. But the best hope for avoiding real trauma is to cut consumption, conserve supplies and, at the very least, make do with 700,000 bbl. less of crude per day. Such an effort would put some slack in worldwide petroleum supplies and help restrain prices. More important, it would also show Iran and the world that the U.S. can start breaking its addiction to the demon...
...should cut off grain shipments, as he could do under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Cries of "Food for crude!" are starting to be heard. The White House, however, has no present intention of halting food supplies. If the U.S. later plugs up this cornucopia, Iran will be less vulnerable than it once was. As a Persian grain trader says, "We are earning $24 billion a year from oil. We can buy food any place we want...
...international community, the reaction is likely to be more diffuse, but not less damaging to the Administration. Staunch allies, such as the NATO countries and Japan, ought to be aghast at an incident that so vividly demonstrates the limits of their senior partner's power. Friendly states in the Middle East, like Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, will probably be more ambivalent: on the one hand, they may hope that the outrage will provoke the U.S. into playing a more assertive role in their region; on the other, they are sure to worry about how credible the U.S. performance...
They were then treated to 25 minutes of the sort of anti-Washington, pro-free-enterprise punch lines that Reagan has used to wow audiences since 1964, when he campaigned for Barry Goldwater. But Reagan delivered his speech with far less passion than he has in the past. This time he is the front runner, and in an attempt to broaden his appeal, the former California Governor seems to have banked the fires that once frightened more moderate G.O.P. factions...