2010年世界经济动态回顾

The year began with a battered economy, trying to limp back to life---some glimmers of hope, but still the missing piece----jobs.

“It’s very easy to get very depressed and lie in bed and stay in your pajamas and watch TV all day.”

With an unemployment hovering at just below 10%, millions of people are out of work. While the recession is finally over, the president took some hits for not getting the economy back quickly.

“There is no silver bullet. There is no quick fix to these problems.”

A lack of confidence in paper currency sends gold prices through the roof. In an effort to help our economy, the Fed keeps the interest rates at historically low levels. Food and energy prices shoot up and a computer glitch sent the Dow Jones tumbling 600 points in an instant, causing moments of panic before the numbers shot back up again. The mortgage mess triggered a flood of foreclosures, but foreclosures are halted in 23 states as officials look into whether banks took control without doing the proper paperwork. The Federal Reserve aims to give banks a boost by buying up 600 billion dollars in bonds. Behind the move, an effort to lower long-term interest rates to avoid another foreclosure disaster. The Credit Card Reform Act goes into effect. The goal is protecting you from deceptive practices and making credit cards safer. But consumers still have to read the fine print. A slimmed-down General Motors cuts costs to show it no longer needs monster sales to make big earnings. GM earns two billion dollars in the third quarter and launches of a whooping IPO sale to raise 20 billion to help pay back federal bailout dollars. As some signs of life come back on the business front, one thing is certain: there are still challenges ahead.

Stan Case reporting