Recession Essay

CLOSING STATEMENT: although, … Businesses were also affected by the Stock Market Crash. Many businesses were already struggling so the crash hurt them even more. “With money scarce, banks and investors were suddenly unwilling or unable to provide industry with the money it needed to gr... ... middle of paper ... ...oblems here in the United States started happening overseas. There was a high tariff put on products that were needed to be exported to other countries which caused more harm to other economies. It is easy to see that the Stock Market Crash was a horrible event for America.

The bubble forced banks to give out homes loans with unreasonably high risk rates. The response of the banks caused a decline in the amount of houses purchased and “a crisis involving mortgage loans and the financial securities built on them” (McConnell, 2012 p.479). The effect on the economy was catastrophic and caused a “pandemic” of foreclosures that effected tens of thousands home owners across the U.S. (Scaliger, 2013). The debt burden eventually became unsustainable and the U.S. crisis deepened as the long-term effect on bank loans would affect not only the housing market, but also the job market. What at first seemed to be an economic slump turned into a brutal crisis, and all eyes looked to the Government and Federal Reserve to help the economy.

By 2008, due to the failures of large financial institutions, there were severe liquidity problems within the US banking system. When the housing bubble peaked in late 2007 the values of securities linked to U.S. real estate pricing began to plummet (Stiglitz 55). This was a critical hit to financial institutions across the globe. Questions began to arise amongst consumers and members of government alike in regards to the solvency of banks due to poorly performing loans and mortgages, which in turn led to declines in the availability of credit. The complete loss of investor confidence impacted stock markets globally.

(New York Stock Exchange) This investment was hoping that people could make a profit and repay the loans they made. But just as one would expect, events didn’t unfold as planned. When the stocks ended up crashing, people were completely out of money, and had nothing to give to repay the banks, which were also in need of money. The crashing of the stocks was a pivotal moment, and eventually led to the Great Depression In the 1920s Americans naively believed that the economy... ... middle of paper ... ...n, was one of the most traumatic events The United States has endured. With the deadly combination of faulty investments, false assumptions of prosperity, and naive economic decisions, America was plunged into a depression.

During the early 2000s, the housing market was promising; house prices continually were rising, so banks were loaning to almost anyone. The problem with this situation was that the people who were getting approved for mortgages weren’t at all qualified financially to buy such an expensive home. In the fall of 2008, the housing market dropped dramatically. This caused homes to drop in price, which made homeowners owe more for their home than it was worth. Many homeowners were unable or unwilling to pay, which caused banks to lose money and merge with other banks.

Speculators who borrowed money from the banks to buy their stocks could not repay the loans because they could not sell stocks. This caused many banks to fail. Since bank deposits were uninsured before the 1930s depositors' their money, which in many cases was all that many people had. The stock market crash intensified the course of the Great Depression in many ways. Besides wiping out the savings of thousands, it hurt commercial banks that had invested heavily in corporate stocks.

However, once the housing bubble burst, investors began to question the value of MBSs; there was a huge write down in their value, prompting huge losses in the financial sector. The long held myth that house prices do not decrease was found to be catastrophically inaccurate, and with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, The Era of The Great Complacence was well and truly at its end.

But when the stock market crashed, the rich entrepreneurs, and the lower class citizens alike, lost everything, and the unemployment rates soared. Not only was high unemployment rates caused by the st... ... middle of paper ... ...nd people just trying to sell their homes were harmed by this because there were items available for a lower price. Putting regulations on the percentage a loan can be, and the ability to give out risky loans would assist in averting this crisis in the future. In the life span of one person, a country can go through many wars, it can be the cause of a global economic crisis and come out as the world leader, and somehow fall right back into economic hardship. This is the life that many who lived in the Great Depression have seen.

In economics, a recession occurs when there is a slowdown in the spending of goods and services in the market. A recession causes a drop in employment, GDP growth, investment, as well as societal well-being. All recessions are caused by a specific cause, but the Great Recession of 2007-2009 was caused by a crash in the housing market. This crash was triggered by a steep decline in housing prices. All of a sudden, people bought houses because there was an excessive amount of money in the economy and they thought the price of houses would only increase.

This raises the question: how do we solve the foreclosure crisis? The foreclosure problem is complex. Firstly, many people have been taking out loans to pay for houses they cannot afford. As people saw the value of homes increase in the 1990s, they bought expensive homes hoping the price would continue to rise. However, this practice left millions of families with large loans and mortgages that they could not afford when the house market fell, thus leading into delinquency and into foreclosure.