Word: petrodollar
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Russia is drinking, and without drinking we cannot be," said Prince Vladimir, ruler of the state of Kievan Rus in the 10th century, as he chose Christianity for the state religion over teetotal Islam. Never has Russia indulged her joy more than over the last five petrodollar-rich years, with alcohol from any land available to complement the fabulous abundance of domestic vodkas, at prices ranging from affordable at kiosks to exclusive at rare wine boutiques. But the joy abruptly ended on July 1. Citing the need to control alcohol quality and tax collection, the government has decreed that...
While that brought prosperity to the industrial, consuming nations, it bled the producers. OPEC members watched their petrodollar budgets slide into the red, and other exporters, such as Russia and Mexico, went virtually bankrupt from lost oil revenues. Finally, in the past year, OPEC's members woke up. Why should the West profit from unparalleled prosperity while they drew up austerity plans? They boosted the cost of crude by slowing production, until a barrel fetched nearly $35. Americans, like Europeans, started to grumble at the steady rise in the price they paid to gas up. By summer, U.S. drivers were...
...Arab as Plutocrat. The gas lines of the '70s fueled the image of overpowerful sheiks, shifty in kaffiyehs and sunglasses, plotting the petrodollar domination of the world in grim melodramas like Marlon Brando's The Formula (1980), Richard Gere's Power and Jane Fonda's Rollover (1981). There is an ironic precedent for such pop paranoia: the anti-Semitic myth of the all-powerful...
...moral here: that money was the root of all Ewings. But, really, Dallas was what it criticized. Endlessly fascinated with the lives of the rich and pretty, the show looked rich and pretty too, like a Black Forest cake. With sumptuous production values and characters who spent every available petrodollar, Dallas elevated conspicuous consumption to a secular religion: gaud almighty. It introduced viewers to the Greedy '80s, by establishing as a pop icon a Texas oilman who believed it's not what you get that matters, it's what you can get away with. In that age of winks...
...though, is not the whole story. For the past 15 years, petrodollar- rich gulf states have provided a lucrative market for a vast array of Western products. Europe's export-dependent defense industries in particular have enjoyed a multibillion-dollar bonanza in the region. Although declining oil revenues in recent years have slowed the spending spree, the gulf remains an important market for West European and Japanese exporters. Last year British sales to the region were worth more than $8 billion, while French exports, excluding arms, brought in around $3 billion. The Japanese sold $6.8 billion in the region...