20.9.10

"A trough occurred in June 2009"

Source: WSJ.com

In determining that a trough occurred in June 2009, the committee did not conclude that economic conditions since that month have been favorable or that the economy has returned to operating at normal capacity. Rather, the committee determined only that the recession ended and a recovery began in that month. A recession is a period of falling economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales. The trough marks the end of the declining phase and the start of the rising phase of the business cycle. Economic activity is typically below normal in the early stages of an expansion, and it sometimes remains so well into the expansion.

The committee decided that any future downturn of the economy would be a new recession and not a continuation of the recession that began in December 2007. The basis for this decision was the length and strength of the recovery to date.

17.9.10

Millennium Development Goals

[W]hen world leaders met at the Millennium Summit and pledged to work together to free humanity from the "abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty," and to "make the right to development a reality for everyone". These pledges include commitments to improve access to education, health care, and clean water for the world's poorest people; abolish slums; reverse environmental degradation; conquer gender inequality; and cure HIV/AIDS.


It's an ambitious list, but its capstone is Goal 8, which calls for a "global partnership for development". This includes four specific targets: "an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system"; special attention to the needs of least-developed countries; help for landlocked developing countries and small island states; and national and international measures to deal with developing countries' debt problems.