CNN news 2010-09-25 加文本

2010-09-25 cnn

AZUZ: The General Assembly is getting together at U.N. headquarters in New York this week. On Thursday, the group will start its annual debate. That's when member nations discuss global issues and what they might do about them. Before that starts, though, the U.N. is having another meeting. This one is about the organization's Millennium Development Goals. The man speaking at the podium is Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the leader of the U.N. He wants the member countries to keep pushing toward the development goals they set for themselves a decade ago. Those include finding ways to fight poverty, hunger and disease. The concern is that, because of the global economic crisis, countries haven't been able to put as much money toward fighting those issues.

AZUZ: The recession affected how we spend money. According to a new survey, it affected what we use to spend money. Talking about credit cards. In 2007, 87 percent of the things we bought -- our purchases -- were made with plastic on credit cards. In 2009, it was down to 56 percent. Some experts think it could drop to 45 percent this year. Analysts have a few different reasons why. One: People aren't spending as much. Two: More people are using debit cards. Those usually don't let you spend what you don't have. And three: New laws are making it harder for young people to get credit cards.