There has also been some success on the balance of payments. It is now clear that the pronounced deterioration in the external accounts occurred during the 1970s, reached a plateau from the early 1980s to the present, and may have shown its first, although tentative sign of improvement over the past few years.
There is also evidence that progress is finally being made on unemployment, a subject I would like to cover in a little more detail. There were international recessions in the early 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.