Word: dollarize
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...pullback on debt-fueled spending continued into the spring. New data from the Federal Reserve shows that outstanding consumer credit which includes credit cards, auto loans and tuition financing, but not mortgages, fell by $15.7 billion to $2.52 trillion, an annualized drop of 7.4%. That marks the second-largest dollar drop on record, following March's $16.6 billion decline...
Those bullish on global economic recovery have their data points: the steady upward climb of world stock markets, three straight months of Chinese manufacturing expansion, the weak dollar. But there are still plenty of skeptics of a rapid and robust turnaround, with their own set of numbers to cite: continued bleeding of private-sector jobs in the U.S. and Europe, more record lows in new home construction, and, er, the weak dollar. (Watch TIME's video of Peter Schiff trash-talking the markets...
Still, many expected things to be different this time. The bursting of the housing bubble so soon after the tech-stock wreck was supposed to show the excess and folly of the financial-services industry. Many predicted a massive shift in workers away from dollar-crunching into the more real parts of the economy. The best and the brightest would no longer head straight to Wall Street. (See 10 perfect jobs for the recession...
...will we bring down costs? The problem with American health care, those who have studied the system will tell you, is not that we get too little care but that we use too much. By some estimates, as much as 30 cents of every health-care dollar is spent on medical treatment that is unnecessary, ineffective, duplicative or even harmful. Changing all that is going to require revamping health care from top to bottom, starting with the way health-care providers are reimbursed. While the current system pays them for the amount of care they provide, real reform would...
...effectiveness research that gives doctors and patients a better sense of which treatments work best. And a reformed health-care system would put more emphasis on preventive care and managing such chronic conditions as asthma, heart disease and diabetes that now account for 75 cents out of every medical dollar spent. All these things would force a cultural and economic revolution on the health industry - and the patients who depend...