Word: surplus
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Some cartel members, of course, really do need the money. States like Venezuela and Indonesia have launched crash development programs to provide for their large, poverty-blighted populations. From an initial surplus of $60 billion in 1974, which the cartel simply could not spend fast enough, OPEC'S ledgers have returned to close to balance for nearly all members. But there are major exceptions. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the smaller Persian Gulf sheikdoms still have large surpluses...
...Japan was the most intransigent bargainer. It put up so many roadblocks that the Europeans were forced to withdraw trucks and electronic items from the list of goods that they had offered for concessions to everyone. Charged the European Community's Sir Roy Denman: "A massive Japanese [trade] surplus is difficult to accept if at the same time the Japanese market is not an open one and the Japanese exporters, like soldiers from a fortress, create havoc...
LICHTBLAU: We should use our surplus of natural gas to fuel industrial plants and utilities. Coal-powered electricity plants in the Midwest could export surplus electricity to the East and replace imported oil. One of our greatest errors was not to build up our strategic oil reserves. Had we done so, the Iranian cutback would have had less of an impact. We should move full speed ahead with the reserve plan now because there will be another crisis some time down the road...
...elections now. Although 1.7 million Italians are out of work and inflation (annual rate: 12.9%) remains high, Andreotti's policies have helped stabilize the lira and brought the economy to the verge of a new boom. In 1978 Italy piled up an impressive $6.4 billion balance of payments surplus and increased exports by 10%. Says an aide to the Premier: "In the last three years, we put through more constructive legislation than all the governments of the past 15 years put together." The Christian Democrats hope to regain the support of disillusioned centrists who tend to blame the Communists...
Though the fare is heavy and perceptive compared with conventional comics, the cartoon paneling cannot, of course, do justice to the complexity of Marxist thought. Del Rio's treatment of the theory of surplus value is little more than a shouting match between a cartoon worker who wants more wages and a Daddy Warbucks entrepreneur who seeks investment return. Worse, del Rio occasionally slips into heated leftist polemic and embarrassing overpraise of his hero. At one point, he credits Marx singlehanded with now making possible "what was impossible for 20 centuries: freedom from the exploitation...