Word: billion
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Dates: during 1990-1990
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...wonder why he sought the distinction. Brazil, with a population of 147 million, is now the eighth largest economy in the noncommunist world -- and one of the sickest. Under President Jose Sarney, who took office in 1985, it has run up the Third World's largest foreign debt ($110 billion), is being choked by bureaucracy and is mired in hyperinflation. Collor's credentials for curing those woes are slender: he served only one term in the National Congress, and the sleepy northeastern state he governed, Alagoas, has only 2.3 million people. Last week, however, Collor exuded confidence. "The problems...
...promised to privatize many of Brazil's oversize state industries, strip away excessive layers of government staffing, crack down on waste and corruption, bring the federal budget in line with reality and reduce inflation to 3% a month -- low by Brazilian standards. He also promised to spend $94 billion on housing, education and health services for the poor. Collor's resulting popularity among the country's shirt-sleeved masses, declared a bitter Lula, is undeserved. The President- elect, he predicted, "will govern in favor of big business, the armed forces and the International Monetary Fund...
...good news is that the U.S. gross national product doubled during the 1980s, from $2.7 trillion to $5.3 trillion. The bad news is that much of this was done by borrowing. The national debt tripled, from $909 billion to almost $2.9 trillion (interest alone now amounts to $165 billion a year, roughly the equivalent of the budget deficit). Corporate and personal debts both soared. All in all, the U.S. consumed $1 trillion more than it produced in goods and services...
...good news is that booming international trade is spreading wealth around the world. The bad news is that the U.S. was the world's largest creditor in 1980 but went into the red in 1985, and has become the world's largest debtor. Its trade deficit runs about $150 billion a year. Foreign holdings in the U.S. now amount to $1.5 trillion, compared with $1.2 trillion in U.S. assets abroad. And meanwhile, the grinding poverty of the Third World, by now $1 trillion in debt, has not improved in the least...