In this sense, the recent EEFSU crisis is a repeat of the Latin American debt-led growth and debt accumulation of the 1970s that ended with the crisis in the 1980s. Finally, the neo-liberal policies of EEFSU have given rise to a pattern of growth that was often anti-poor, not only during the transformational recession of 1989-2000 but also during the roaring years of 2000-2007 (see figure 4). Yet, the worsening of inequality in the region during the recent period was comparatively small (see figure 12) so that, taking the combined effect of rapid growth and moderately rising inequality, the real incomes of the bottom deciles nevertheless increased. Other factors not discussed in this paper that are often cited as having contributed to the inequality increase concern privatization and the introduction of user fees to formerly free public utilities.