On January 1 1974, the Gulf states raised their posted price to $11.65/barrel, completing a 4.5-fold rise in the cost of this essential energy source in a single year—and this ended the era of rapid economic expansion that had been energized by cheap oil. From 1950 to 1973 the Western European economic product had nearly tripled, and the US GDP had more than doubled in that single generation. Between 1973 and 1975 the global economic growth rate dropped by about 90 percent, and as soon as the economies affected by higher oil prices began to adjust to these new realities—above all by impressive
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