Word: petroleum
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Perez, who has long inveighed against his continent's onerous financial burden, had finally found austerity unavoidable. Venezuela owes foreign creditors, largely U.S. commercial banks, about $33 billion. In the 1970s, when the country was awash with petroleum revenues, the government that Perez headed spent lavishly on social-welfare projects and industrial schemes. But as oil prices took a dive in the 1980s, so did the economy, which earned 90% of export revenues from petroleum. Hard-pressed for cash, Venezuela last Dec. 31 suspended payments for 90 days on the bulk of its foreign obligations...
...business there, invested in banking, insurance and industry, and served as a sometime government adviser. In 1969, a year after the Baath Party came to power, Barbouti fled the country, fearing that he might be arrested as a spy because he had built a headquarters for a foreign-owned petroleum group. For nearly a decade he moved around the Middle East and Europe, finally settling in London with his wife and three children. Along the way, he picked up a multimillion-dollar fee as a broker in a Saudi crude-oil deal. That was just the beginning of his good...
...million bbl. per day more than the quota. As a result, OPEC's relative restraint is sparking a rally in the oil markets. The price of West Texas intermediate, a benchmark crude, reached $19.26 per bbl. last week, vs. less than $13 last October. Not since November 1987 has petroleum been so expensive...
...opposing side, marching beneath such catchy acronyms as FUEL (Fuel Users for Equitable Levies) and TRIP (The Road Information Program), are some unlikely fellow travelers. Among them: the American Petroleum Institute, which represents big oil companies, and Americans for Democratic Action, a left-wing organization that rates public office holders on their support for liberal issues. Both groups contend that a gas-tax increase would unfairly burden lower-income motorists because they spend a higher proportion of their income on fuel than better-off drivers do. The opponents are joined by state legislators, who fear that a higher federal levy...
...introduced two bills to raise the gasoline tax. Both have gone nowhere. The undaunted Beilenson plans to try again in 1989. "The math just calls out for taxes," he says, "and this is one of the simplest ones around." Says John Gore, a Washington representative of British Petroleum: "Nobody's pushing for a higher gas tax, but it seems to have a life...