Word: boom
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...their sunny spirits. Taking the long view, the global economy is at a remarkable moment. Whatever the chance of a recession this year, the U.S. has experienced what the economist and former Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs John B. Taylor of Stanford University calls a "long boom" since the Fed started to squeeze inflation out of the system in 1979. For nearly 30 years, Taylor points out, the few downturns the U.S. has suffered have, in historical terms, been both short and shallow. Even more extraordinary is the tale outside the U.S. According to the World Bank...
...China's imbalances are likely to get worse. This is largely because the country's spectacular economic boom is driven by a self-sustaining flywheel of rapid productivity gains and increasing profits, which generates excess capital that is in turn invested in more manufacturing capacity. This is why the country's trade surplus with the rest of the world has been rising at an alarming pace, growing nearly 50% to a record $262 billion last year (although the trade gap narrowed in the final three months of 2007). Because many Chinese companies are awash with cash, traditional policies aimed...
Once upon a time, the Communist government strictly enforced draconian laws against homosexuality, imprisoning and even executing those convicted. As China's economy opened to the world, so did the authorities' stance soften, with gay communities springing up in the larger coastal cities that benefited most from the boom such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. It's a process that had been accelerating along with the economy so that recent years have seen the sort of advances that allow young gay men like Xiao Wang the confidence to be blissfully ignorant of past problems the community has faced...
Most of the baby boomers, though, will be dead by 2041. I was born in 1964, considered the final year of the boom, and according to the Social Security Administration, I should expect to keel over by the end of 2042. So it's not we boomers but long-run trends in immigration, fertility and life expectancy that are projected to leave the program chronically short of funds after that...
CONTEXT The alternative-fuel boom has caused a leap in demand for corn. In turn, many farmers looking to jump on the biofuel bandwagon have abandoned staples like barley and hops in favor of energy crops. Exacerbating the trend: last year's droughts, floods and unusual temperatures...