Some parts of the world pretty much sailed through the 2008-2009 recession, while other parts of the world had huge problems. The part that sailed through the recession is what I call the \u201cGrowing Part of the World.\u201d<\/p>\n
I thought it would be interesting to see how the countries in the \u201cGrowing Part of the World\u201d have behaved over the long term with respect to a number of variables (energy, GDP, and population). I compare these countries to two other groups of countries which did not fare as well during the 2008-2009 recession:<\/p>\n
Together these three groups equal the whole world, which is why I call the Growing Part of the World \u201cRemainder\u201d on my charts.<\/p>\n
Figure 1 (below) shows that GDP growth rates have been quite different over the long term for the three groups, with the growth rate of the Growing Group higher than that of EU, US and Japan. The FSU\u2019s growth rate has been more variable. Thus, it is not just during the 2008-2009 recession that the groups were different.<\/p>\n