Did Franklin Include Unemployment and Debt in American Regeneration? In “The Way to Wealth” Benjamin Franklin writes, “We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly” trying to prove a point that frequently people are being taxed an outrageous amount and are taxing themselves extra by actions like spending excessive amounts of money (Franklin 237). Throughout Franklin’s “The Way to Wealth,” he explains how an American economy should work and maintain a stabilized economy for themselves. In the American realm today, about 5.0% of people find themselves facing unemployment, a time of stress and conflict (“Databases, Calculators & Tables by Subject”). With the unemployment rates rising for the first time since February of 2015, the American economy is also facing an increase in debt levels throughout personal households …show more content…
The American economy struggling originates from people taxing themselves as a result of idleness, pride, and folly, leading to a downward economic spiral. For the economy to return to a low unemployment rate and little to no debt people may want to read “The Way to Wealth” in order to learn about industry and how to avoid future money mistakes. Franklin wrote a persuasive sermon in order to convince people to change the financial status created from idleness, pride and folly. In the modern society American people need to create a stable economy for both themselves and the future generations. In order to understand the importance of unemployment rates and debt rates in comparison to Franklin’s “The Way to Wealth” idleness, pride and folly must be analyzed in
Gordon S. Wood delves into Benjamin Franklin’s philosophical, political, and personal legacies in the biography, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin. The book travels through Franklin’s experiments, his travels in Europe, and his role in the American revolution. The book begins when Franklin retires from business and becomes a gentleman. It was when he became a gentleman, it allowed him to analyze the world around him. “Indeed, he could not drink a cup of tea without wondering why the tea leaves at the bottom gathered in way rather than another,” a quote from Edmund S. Morgan’s book, Benjamin Franklin. Franklin spent a great deal of time in Britain before returning to America. When he returned, he threw himself into the American revolution, which sent him to France. After he accomplished his duties in France, he returned back home to America where he ran for public office.
Leading up to the year 1981, America had fallen into a period of “stagflation”, a portmanteau for ‘stagnant economy’ and ‘high inflation’. Characterized by high taxes, high unemployment, high interest rates, and low national spirit, America needed to look to something other than Keynesian economics to pull itself out of this low. During the election of 1980, Ronald Reagan’s campaign focused on a new stream of economic policy. His objective was to turn the economy into “a healthy, vigorous, growing economy [which would provide] equal opportunities for all Americans, with no barriers born of bigotry or discrimination.” Reagan’s policy, later known as ‘Reaganomics’, entailed a four-point plan which cut taxes, reduced government spending, created anti-inflationary policy, and deregulated certain products. Though ‘Reaganomics’ was successful both at controlling “stagflation” and promoting economic growth, it has and always will be an extremely controversial topic regarding the redistribution of wealth.
African or black history was not a study that was done by many until the last century. Studying African Americans accurately as part of American History was an even newer field of history. John Hope Franklin’s obituary calls him, “the scholar who helped create the field of African-American history and dominated it for nearly six decades.” He would call himself an historian of the American South.
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address in 1933[ Richard Polenberg, The Era of Franklin D. Roosevelt 1933-1945: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 39-44.] was a famous speech because it instilled new hope in the people. During the speech, President Roosevelt said, “our greatest primary task is to put people to work/ there must be a strict supervision of a banking and credits and investments, so that there will be an end to speculation with other people’s money; and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.” Imaginably，a number of people could not find jobs and people were worried about putting money in a bank. Roosevelt emphasized the seriousness of reducing unemployment, reinforcing reliable baking system, and distributing currency. These problems were important contexts that shaped the content of this speech.
The newly evolving opportunity for rising to a higher economic and social position is one of the most important changes we find in Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography. As Americans became significant purchasers within a connected Atlantic world of goods and services, the expansion of a consumer economy became the basis of a society that was further removed from plantation life and now allowed for the development of commercial opportunities for self-advancement.
New Nationalism focused on eradicating economic inequality. In 2007, the top 1 percent of Americans owned 23.5 percent of the nation’s wealth (Pear, 2011). This problem has increased, not gone away, since Roosevelt addressed it in 1910. Unfairness in the tax code has become a prominent topic of political discussion. President Obama called for alterations to the U.S. tax system, which allows millionaires to pay lower rates than middle-class workers like teachers and firefighters, in his 2012 State of the Union address (“Remarks of President Barack Obama – As prepared for delivery State of the Union Address,” 2012.). In December, the president traveled to Osawatomie to speak. He echoed Roosevelt’s New Nationalism, saying he believes “this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share” (Fox, 2011). Although he spoke in Os...
The national debt is usually a frightening topic citizens of any country, however, in the United States, twenty trillion dollars of national debt is one of the major fears of the economy. Along with this fear comes every politician claiming to be the person to lower this astronomical debt to ease concerns in the modern American economy. In Hamilton’s Blessing, John Steele Gordon tries to alleviate these concerns by showing a plethora of benefits and good the debt has been able to do throughout the history of the United States. The central premise of the book and the main guideline for John Steele Gordon’s thinking is that the debt was used to save the Union in the 1860’s, the American economy in the 1930’s, and the wellbeing of mankind during
Ben Franklin of Old Philadelphia is a children’s nonfiction book about Ben Franklin and his life from a boy to a successful adult. This book was written by Margaret Cousins. The 141 pages in the book was published in 1952.
Smith, Noah. “How to Fix America's Wealth Inequality: Teach Americans to Be Cheap.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Pub., 12 March 2013. Web. 06 April 2014. .
In the October 10, 2011 issue of Time, there is a feature called “The Great American Divide” that reports on money: who has it, who is spending it on what, and how as a country Americans feel about it. This feature also reports something troubling, how the gap between rich and poor is once again growing wide (Sachs, 2011). Shifts in spending, shifts in money control, and a struggle with how to deal with the great money crisis America and Europe face are all discussed in this feature. This feature pulls together how GDP, unemployment rates, consumer consumption, and pricing affect this era of volatility and the shrinking middle class (Foroohar, 2011). This feature also reflects on inflation, economic growth, political stability in emerging markets and taxes play in as well. The answer to solving this imbalance of wealth and the struggling economy may be found by government action, but will it be too late?
In “The Way to Wealth,” the 1758 essay included in Poor Richard’s Almanac during its first few years of publication, Benjamin Franklin recounts a story whereby locals were gathered outside a merchant auction and complaining of “the badness of the times” to Father Abraham, an elderly man. “‘…[W]hat think you of the times? Will not these heavy taxes quite ruin the country? How shall we ever be able to pay them?”
Benjamin Franklin, born in 1706, was slightly more self-educated than Wheatley but wasn’t number one. “Franklin spent all of his spare time reading”(399) this shows that he was very self-educated and wanted to learn more about the world. In his autobiography, he speaks of his life and the various things he has accomplished and went through. Even though writing became important to him, he was more in love with the reading, “From a child I was fond of reading, and all my little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books”(Franklin 409) all of the money he earned went to buy new books. Franklin speaks about staying up all times of night just to read and it taught him a lot. Reading even taught him how to write better, “I met with an odd volume of the Spectator.
Benjamin Franklin is one of the most influential and famous figures of all time. Ben Franklin if often referred to as the "self-made man," and his philosophies and principles in the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, edited by Louis P. Masur, has served as a self-help book for millions around the world. Franklin's Autobiography is a prime example of the American dream, a rag to riches story that has inspired many people to think of themselves and the community in a different light. Franklin's moral and social philosophies are packed deeply into his Autobiography. Franklin believed that improving ones self was the key to success. Self-improvement, self-education, and self-discipline are the main factors of a self-made man. Improving yourself will ultimately improve the society as a whole. Franklin speaks of principality and inclination. His idea was to produce the principle man with the awareness of man's natural inclination. Throughout the text Franklin provides examples from his own life that contradicts his moral and social philosophies. These contradictions are mostly caused by natural inclinations. Franklin uses these contradictions to educate people to be aware of their natural inclinations and to try and overcome them. Franklin's realizes that improving oneself is a road with many imperfections. Not even the "self-made man" was completely perfect.
The chain of fundamental thoughts behind this conviction takes after: as more individuals work the national yield expands, bringing about wages to build, creating purchasers to have more cash and to spend additionally, bringing about shoppers requesting more products and administrations, at long last bringing on the costs of merchandise and administrations to increment. At the end of the day, Phillips demonstrated that unemployment and inflation imparted a converse relationship: inflation climbed as unemployment fell, and inflation fell as unemployment rose. Since two noteworthy objectives for financial approach creators are to keep both inflation and unemployment low, Phillip 's disclosure was an imperative reasonable achievement, additionally represented a troublesome test: how to keep both unemployment and inflation low, when bringing down one results in raising the other?
Unfortunately, there are many Americans out of work in today’s current declining economy. Unemployment can be defined as a person who is out of work involuntary, not by choice. These people are looking jobs and available to start work. Being unemployed can be disheartening and deciding what the next step is can be challenging. Underemployed can be described as being inadequately employed, such as a low-paying job that requires fewer skills than one possess. (Daly, Hobijn, and Kwok 2015) Making ends meet can be difficult for one who has been affected by this economy over the past few years. America still has a high unemployment rate since the decline of the current job market. And many Americans are struggling to establish the skills needed for employment, or the underemployed are force to lower they skill to make a profit. America’s economic status has force the underemployed and unemployed to make ends meet with the current jobs available. And last but not least some have also utilized these difficult times to venture into new discoveries to make life hassle free. So, we wonder is Americans giving up in today’s economy or do they settle for lower end job to establish a steady income to make ends.