Today's leaders are having to deal with degrees and shades of complexity that they have never faced before, an enormous problem if their outlook happens to be restricted or confined. For example, how you view the macroeconomic downturn of the late 2000s depends a lot on where you are and what you are looking at. According to a Brookings Institution report based on the International Monetary Fund's latest World Economic Outlook(WEO): "At one end of the spectrum, 71 countries - two-fifths of the total number in the (WEO) database - posted an increase in per capita income in 2009, despite the global economy as a whole undergoing a severe contraction. Among these 71 are three-quarters of the world's low-income countries, who, contrary to fears, fared relatively well through the crisis. At the other end of the spectrum, 39 countries have forfeited at least four years of economic progress.