Word: slump
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...Western Europe, the slump has swelled the ranks of the unemployed to a post-World War II record of 22 million, or almost one out of every ten workers. Even in West Germany, one of the foremost economic powerhouses of the postwar era, joblessness has nearly doubled since 1979, to 6.8%, and the pace of business bankruptcies has increased more than 100%. Says Karl Otto Pöhl, president of the West German Bundesbank: "Resignation and pessimism are more widespread than at any time since...
Besides economic conditions, other factors in Western societies have contributed to the investment slump. Environmental-protection groups like the Sierra Club in the U.S. and the Greens in West Germany have helped create a regulatory atmosphere that has been hostile to industrial growth. In the U.S. particularly, an extremely low personal savings rate (5.7% of take-home pay vs. 18.7% in Japan) has reduced the potential pool of funds available for investment. Says Herman Kahn, director of the Hudson Institute, a New York-based research group: "People are really not willing to sacrifice for economic growth any more...
...over investment for the future. To do that, they will have to curb government spending, control inflation and bring down interest rates. The world may never return to the heady growth of the postwar years, but correct and consistent policies can get Western countries out of their long-running slump. -By Charles Alexander. Reported by D.L Cortu/Bonn and Frederick Ungeheuer/New York
Canadians marked their country's 115th birthday last week with picnics, parades and a dazzling display of fireworks over Ottawa's Parliament Hill. But the celebration hardly reflected the times; Canada faces its worst economic slump since the 1930s. Unemployment stands at a post-Depression high of 10.2%, inflation is galloping along at 11.8%, and the prime rate is stuck at a crippling 18.25%. In an effort to check the growing sense of alarm, Finance Minister Allan MacEachen unveiled a new budget, his third in less than 18 months. But as Canadians studied his belt-tightening measures...
...even the recession is succeeding in containing the inflationary runup in health care. Last week the Labor Department reported that June unemployment held firm at 9.5% of the labor force, continuing an employment slump that has helped to ease inflationary pressures throughout much of the economy. Even so, health-care costs have just kept on surging ahead without letup. Nearly 10% of the U.S.'s gross national product is now spent on medical care of one sort or another, compared with only...