Word: backdrop
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...ECONOMIC BACKDROP Even veteran economists are rubbing their eyes in disbelief at how well the U.S. economy has behaved this decade. For years policymakers couldn't figure out how to reduce joblessness without flaring inflation. The 1990s finally revealed the secret: end the cold war; slash military spending. Pare annual federal budget deficits. Have a central-bank chairman who can deftly apply the monetary brakes to hold inflation down without killing the expansion. Voila! The healthiest economy in recent memory...
...ECONOMIC BACKDROP At 18, a girl named Victoria became Queen of England in 1837. Her 63-year reign, the longest in British history, spanned an era in which the country became the world's richest and most powerful. Colonial expansion reached its zenith; Britain ruled about 25% of the world's lands and population...
...ECONOMIC BACKDROP This was the decade of Jay Gatsby, Florenz Ziegfeld, the rise of the American middle class and unbounded optimism. Following a postwar depression in 1920-21, the economy bounced back with a vengeance, growing a torrid 30% in the next two years. And money succeeded in holding its purchasing power as inflation averaged a less than 1% in the decade. The boom filled federal coffers. The 1920s was the last decade in this century when the federal budget ran a surplus every year. The national debt shrank from $24 billion to $16 billion. Taxes were reduced...
...ECONOMIC BACKDROP Prior transitions from war to peace were accompanied by painful economic downturns. But the 1950s radically parted with that tradition as a result of massive federal intervention and the fact that the U.S. emerged physically unscathed, and rich, from history's most destructive war. Government helped: the Employment Act of 1946 (promoting maximum employment and production), the G.I. Bill (giving veterans financial aid to return to school) and the Federal Aid Highway Act (building highways everywhere) eased the transition to a peacetime economy...
...ECONOMIC BACKDROP Japan served as a marvel of industrial planning gone right. Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry kept the cost of capital low and directed resources to export sectors such as autos and consumer electronics, at the same time fiercely protecting the home market from foreign competition...