Chapter 10: Global Confidence and Global Panic.

Chapter 10 of the book "The Global Economic System Since 1945" is presented. It explores global economic trends in the 1990s. When the U.S. Federal Reserve trimmed the discount rate to 5.5 percent in January 2001, unemployment still stood at a historical low of 4.1 percent, reaching 5.8 percent by December 2001. In 1996, unemployment rates in East Asia were low and economic growth high. Between 1991 and 1996 the central government of Hong Kong reported five annual budget surpluses and one budget deficit.