Hidden problems
For those commentators prepared to look honestly and go a little deeper than immediate appearances, there were disturbing signs. While the IMF, for instance, was exuberant about prospects, research commissioned by the World Bank painted a rather different picture. Growth for the world as a whole was well down on the levels not only of the long boom, but also of the first decade and a half after its end:
Graph three: world GDP growth rate 1961-2006<sup>7</sup>
The Years of Delusion
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