Careful optimism and tough realities

At year’s end, the signals for the future of the global economy are mixed. On the one hand, recovery of the financial markets continues – with some fluctuations. On the other hand, all the experts state that unemployment will remain stubbornly high – some improvement is foreseen in the US, China, Brazil, India, Australia – but in general 2010 will be a year of confronting very tough times, for millions of working families.

Time-lags mean that public revenue in many countries will get worse before they get better, with the threat of so-called “exit strategies”, to write down debt, looming for all our public services, notably education. And great uncertainties are still there for Greece, Venezuela, Ukraine, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Portugal – the list goes on.

And the developing countries in all this!

Maybe cautious optimism for the experts. But tough, tough realities for many, many people!