The Oil Crisis in the Seventies and The Monetary Policy

Energy Crisis (1970’s) states that the crisis officially began when the “Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) reduced their petroleum production and proclaimed an embargo on oil shipments to the United States and the Netherlands, the main supporters of Israel.” They did

Oil has often been referred to as any economy’s lifeblood. Although this is an overemphasis, oil has been the key, nonhuman resource of the economy throughout the largest part of the 20th century. In the book “The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, And Power” by Daniel Yergin, the author illustrates the political, societal, economic, and geo-strategic importance of this product.

In 1973, an oil crisis began when the members of the OAPEC (consisting of the Arab members of OPEC, plus Egypt, Syria and Tunisia) proclaimed an oil embargo in response to the United States decision to resupply the Israeli military during the Yom Kippur War. The embargo happened when 85% of American workers had to drive to work every day. President

During the sixties, economic prosperity and growth enabled citizens of the United States to gain ownership of homes, ownership of automobiles, and access to higher education. However, during the seventies, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) created an oil embargo which doubled the price of oil and created a long period of inflation in the United States. As a result, the upward

During the Great depression, British economist John Maynard Keynes developed what is known as the Keynesian economics. Keynesian economics is an economic theory of aggregate demand or the total spending in the economy. (Investopedia, LLC., 2003)

Several oil-countries have been facing economic and political turbulence as a result of the crash in oil prices, and there is disagreement among OPEC as how to handle the situation. (Krauss) While this is happening, America’s oil production continues to rise, as it inches closer to becoming an energy superpower in production and consumption; and countries that depend on their oil exports face recession.

Renewable energy has currently become a significant aspect in the countries generation, combination, and a constitution focus of government policy for energy, and environmental protection. As a result of public’s growing responsibility for the environment and constantly binding rules, and regulations of emission in the electric power industry, government has facilitated policies to boost the amount of renewable energy in the electricity generation portfolio. Additionally, the generation of electricity from renewable resources creates insufficient, and frequently, zero emissions of pollutants that comes from traditional fossil fuel production technologies. The additional use of renewable energy aids utilities in their emission agreement obligations. Furthermore, the anticipation of agreement with any future carbon emissions management would further toughen the incentive to move towards cleaner electricity creating technologies (Langwith, 2009).

The financial crisis that happened during 2007-09 was considered the worst financial crisis in the world since the great depression in the 1930s. It leads to a series of banking failures and also prolonged recession, which have affected millions of Americans and paralyzed the whole financial system. Although it was happened a long time ago, the side effects are still having implications for the economy now. This has become an enormously common topic among economists, hence it plays an extremely important role in the economy. There are many questions that were asked about the financial crisis, one of the most common question that dragged attention was ’’How did the government (Federal Reserve) contributed to the financial crisis?’’

In a revealing article by George Perry (2001) the author discusses the economic impact that a disruption in the oil supplies would have on world oil prices. He states “Currently 28 percent of the world's crude oil comes from the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) consisting of Arab Muslim nations, some of which are not part of the OPEC cartel. The governing regimes in all these countries are at some risk [due to the war on terrorism].” He goes on to state that in a worst case scenario the economic consequences of oil supply disruption would be “oil prices rise to $161 per barrel driving gasoline price to $4.84 per gallon. The increase in the nation's bill for products of crude oil rises by about 10 percent of GDP, which adds perhaps 15 percent to the inflation rate in the first year. And the recession is the steepest and deepest of the postwar period, with GDP declining nearly 5 percent the first year.”

Unlike the 1970s, when the U.S. was held at bay by OPEC withholding oil production for political reasons, the growth of

On April 29, 1974, the New York Times ran an article titled “For Gasoline, Little Is Certain But High Prices,” which began with an 18-year-old nursing student from Westchester, NY panicking at the long line in front of the gas station just to get the fuel to commute for class. “Miss Galgano…had been trying since 7 A.M. to get enough fuel.” The dire yet cruel reality of a shortage meant that gas stations had to close down “four lines on [her],” along with millions of other Americans waiting on line for hours. The piece was a vividly jarring depiction of the first ever oil supply shortage since the end of the war. The shortage was blamed on the embargo the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) initiated in 1973, when President

The 1970s is a significant period in the U.S. oil and gas history. American oil production was declining steadily and imports from mainly Arab producers were relied on to shore up the shortfall. The Arab states, which constituted the majority of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), imposed an oil embargo in October 1973 against the U.S. and a number of other industrialized nations that backed Israel during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. Not only did the sanction ban petroleum exports to the target nations, it also introduced cuts in oil production. As a result, between 1972 and 1982, oil prices increased more than tenfold.

-2. The background of the financial crisis.—what kind of monetary policy the federal reserve made?

The Federal Reserve went into action in response to the 2008 recession by rapidly reducing interest rates with the hopes of encouraging economic growth. The federal funds target rate was decreased to between zero and .25 percent. The results of the rate changes caused what is called “zero bound”, this reduced the effectiveness of monetary policy with the near non-existence of interest rates.

The oil-rich Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, located on the northern coast of South America, was for many decades considered among the wealthiest nations in the entire continent. While having the largest proven oil reserves in the world has often proved a tremendous boon for Venezuela, the very black gold that has been the cause of its success has also proven to repeatedly be its kryptonite. Over half of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product stems from petroleum exports – which equates to approximately 95% of total exports. It is really not too hard to imagine what drastic consequences shifts in global oil prices could have on the economy.