OPEC did not actually refuse to export oil to the U.S. -- it refused to sell oil on the world market for U.S. dollars. OPEC nations were smart enough to figure out that the U.S. was about to embark on a period of deliberate inflation of the U.S. dollar, thereby serving as a disincentive for foreign exporters to accept dollars as payment for their products.
. . . the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries raised the price of oil to more than $5 a barrel from $3 a barrel . . . he secured the consent of the other oil-producing nations for yet another price increase, to $11.65 a barrel.
The primary theme of this article is meaningless unless the author first puts these numbers into context. How much of the increase in oil prices was attributable to the production cuts, and how much was attributable to the declline of the U.S. dollar against other world currencies?
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But if you try and warn people that this happened once and is likely to happen again (and soon), you get jumped on and called a commie liberal Bush-hater...and those are the more polite names ;)
I don't think the inflation of this time was deliberate. It was stupid, yes. But I don't think it was a deliberate policy of the Treasury to cheapen the dollar. Gerald Ford's administration fought inflation, timidly to be sure, and "stagflation" brought Carter's administration into the cross hairs of Reaganomics.I believe the inflation of the 70's was caused more by ignorance and hubris, than by design.
Economists remind me of aeronautical engineers that do not have pilots licenses, because they are afraid to fly. They can, with some authority, explain flight, but they can't and don't fly themselves. They shouldn't be allowed on the flight deck of Air Force One, but we allow their economic equivalent on the flight deck of government.