This recession has been the biggest economic struggle in my lifetime. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. The event that led to this recession is the housing crisis, where banks were giving out loans, almost without any restrictions. People were getting involved in one of the best economic times in our history. Confidence was everywhere and the ideal mindset hit everyone. When the economy hit all new highs, people thought the supply and demand chain would continuously rise. The business cycle seemed to be a lie to many Americans. However, the business cycle is real and the world lives a part of it everyday. When deregulation became extreme and private companies, especially banks, got all the power, nothing could stop them from making money. In order for the banks to make large sums of money is by giving out loans. However, the economy went out of control. Now, there are many unemployed without money and a house. The amount of foreclosures increased dramatically from the beginning of the recession. Well, it is horrible that all these fellow citizens lost their homes to foreclosure, but as a country, we need to look ahead and figure out how to fix the situation.
One of the biggest burdens to a home buyer is the idea that whoever loans the money to the buyer will get a significant amount of profit or interest from the loan. It the capitalistic society like the United States, competition and profits is what the economy is all about. However, when a recession occurs or is about to occur, we need the banks and other loaners to be on the side of the buyers. There needs to be discussions with banks that show how profits in hard times hurts them too. All the past facts need to be presented and sympathy needs to co...
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... is difficult in today’s society to try to find cheap houses. However, with this idea, there would be cheaper houses and a bigger market for each house. A foreclose family could afford another house, especially if the tell the truth about their income. The banks, loaners, and mortgage companies should be forced to give back the money they “stole” to each and every person. They are what allowed for the entire foreclosure crisis to happen, so they need to fix it, whatever it takes.
From these ideas comes more regulation in the market. I do not want a permanent government involvement, but in order to fix the economy, the government needs to get involved and watch the villains in action and stop them. If the government gets involved, the companies might get the idea of how the government works, and might become more aware and less power-hungry and profit-hungry.
I believe that we have too many monopolies in Canada because monopolies give the consumer less choice, lower quality service, and products and services can be more costly to the consumer. In my opinion, a market-based economy with fewer monopolies will benefit the consumer because companies will compete to give you the best deal possible to retain your business. In this environment the consumer will benefit most as a consumer, I
Throughout all of my research over the recession of July 1990-March 1991 I have concluded that it was not one of the largest recessions the United States has ever seen, but it was also not the smallest. This recession was only eight months long and did some damage, but not a lot. The Gulf War had the biggest impact on this recession along with the oil spill causing a rise of oil prices. The economy hit a low point and was not able to come out of it until the following year after the recession had already technically ended. Unemployment rates were at a low point towards the ending of the recession and because companies were hesitant about hiring new employees’ unemployment did not start getting better until the following year after the recession ended.
December of 2007 saw the beginning of the worst economic downturn in memorable history; not since the end of the Great Depression in 1939 has the world seen such a devastating and long-lasting economic breakdown. The Great Recession shook the public’s faith in the capitalist system and silenced those who claimed a modern economy was impervious to another broad collapse like the one in 1929. Discontent and mistrust from the public has built not only with large corporations and the financial sector, but also with the government, whose legislature and policies in recent decades seem to coincide with the interests of private corporate power-houses. These lenient policies contributed directly to the recession that affected individuals across the globe. Stunted wages, increased poverty, massive income inequality, and unprecedented unemployment rates are just the start to a long list of consequences that continue to grow as the effects of the Great Recession continue to be felt by individuals all over the world.
Many people today would consider the 2008, United States financial crisis a simple “malfunction” or “mistake”, but it was nothing close to that. Contrary to what many believe, renowned economists and financial advisors regarded the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 to be the most devastating crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930’s. To make matters worse, the decline in the economy expanded nationwide, resulting in the recession of 2007 to 2009 (Brue). David Einhorn, CEO of GreenHorn Capital, even goes as far as to say "What strikes me the most about the recent credit market crisis is how fast the world is trying to go back to business as usual. In my view, the crisis wasn't an accident. We didn't get unlucky. The crisis came because there have been a lot of bad practices and a lot of bad ideas". The 2007 financial crisis was composed of the fall of many major financial institutions, an unknown increase in mortgage loan defaults, and the derived freezing up of credit availability (Brue). It was the result from risky mortgage loans and falling estate values (Brue) . Additionally, the financial crisis of 2007 was the result of underestimation of risk by faulty insurance securities made to protect holders of mortgage-back securities from risk of default and holders of mortgage-backed securities (Brue). Even to present day, America stills suffers from the aftermaths of the financial crisis.
In the midst of the current economic downturn, dubbed the “Great Recession”, it is natural to look for one, singular entity or person to blame. Managers of large banks, professional investors and federal regulators have all been named as potential creators of the recession, with varying degrees of guilt. No matter who is to blame, the fallout from the mistakes that were made that led to the current crisis is clear. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the current unemployment rate is 9.7%, with 9.3 million Americans out of work (Bureau of Labor Statistics). Compared to a normal economic rate of two or three percent, it is clear that the decisions of one group of people have had a profound affect on the lives of millions of Americans. The real blame for this crisis rests on the heads of the managers that attempted to play the financial system through securitization, and forced the American government to “bail out” their companies with taxpayer money. These managers, specifically the managers of AIG and Citigroup, should be subject to extreme pay caps for the length of time that the American taxpayer holds majority holdings in their companies, as a punitive punishment for causing the Great Recession.
Since being founded, America became a capitalist society. Being a capitalist society obtains luxurious benefits and rather harsh consequences if gone bad. In a capitalist society people must buy products and spend money to keep the economy balanced, but once those people stop spending money, the economy goes off balance and the nation enters a recession. Once a recession drastically takes a downturn, the nation enters what is known as a depression. In 2008 America entered a recession and its consequences were severe enough for some people, such as President Barack Obama, to compare the recent crisis to the world’s darkest economic depression in history, the Great Depression. Although the Great Depression and the Great Recession of 2008 hold similarities and differences between the stock market and government spending, political issues, lifestyle changes, and wealth distribution, the Great Depression proved far more detrimental consequences than the Recession.
It can be argued that the economic hardships of the great recession began when interest rates were lowered by the Federal Reserve. This caused a bubble in the housing market. Housing prices plummeted, home prices plummeted, then thousands of borrowers could no longer afford to pay on their loans (Koba, 2011). 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.
Between January 2008 and February 2010, employment fell by 8.8 million, the largest decline in American history. The 2008 Recession, which officially lasted from December 2007 to June 2009, began with the bursting of an 8 trillion dollar housing bubble. Job losses during the recession meant that family incomes dropped, poverty rose, and people all over the country were suffering. Things like this don’t just happen. Policy changes incorporated with the economy are often a major factor. In this case, all roads lead to one major problem: Deregulation. Deregulation originating from the Carter and Regan Administrations, combined with a decrease in consumer spending, and the subprime mortgage bubble all led up to the major recession of 2008.
What caused the Great Recession that lasted from December 2007 to June 2009 in the United States? The United States a country with abundance of resources from jobs, education, money and power went from one day of economic balance to the next suffering major dimensions crisis. According to the Economic Policy Institute, it all began in 2007 from the credit crisis, which resulted in an 8 trillion dollar housing bubble (n.d.). This said by Economist analysts to attributed to the collapse in the United States. Even today, strong debates continue over major issues caused by the Great Recession in part over the accommodative federal monetary and fiscal policy (Economic Policy Institute, 2013). The Great Recession of 2007 – 2009 enlarges the longest financial crisis since the Great Depression of 1929 – 1932 that damaged the economy.
I think government should have a limited role in the economy, it should regulate it just enough to keep it stable. In laissez faire big business is basically allowed to do whatever it wants, short of murder without any legal ramifications. If big businesses are allowed to grow unrestrained they will most likely do so until monopolies are the only form of business left. If this happens there is nothing to stop these monopolies from taking advantage of the consumers who in the end would end up having no choice but to s...
The United States economy is racing ahead at dangerous speeds, and it may be too late to prevent the return of widespread inflation. Ideally the economy should move ahead gradually and grow at a steady manageable rate. Mae West once stated “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful” and it seems the U.S. Treasury Secretary agrees. The Secretary announced that due to our increasing surplus and booming economy, instead of having an outsized tax cut, we should use the surplus to further pay down the national debt. A tax cut, though most Americans would favor it initially, would prove counter productive. Cutting taxes would over stimulate an already raging economy, and enhance the possibilities of an increase in the rate of inflation. Paying off the national debt would actually help lower interest rates and boost investments, and therefore further increase the wealth of the population, while keeping inflation at bay.
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. (Amadeo, 2012). There was a financial frenzy as the growing desire for homes expanded. People held a lot of faith in the economy and began spending irrationally on houses that they couldn’t afford. This led to overvalued estate and unsustainable mortgage debt. (McConnell, Brue, Flynn, 2012).
In my opinion the government spends way too much money (taxpayers money) to make sure that the bigger institutions do not fail and have a huge negative affect on the economy. The way that many people, myself included, think the government should handle this is to break the bigger institutions up into smaller ones that way we can still let the institutions go bankrupt and not have it effect our economy in a big way.
Today more than ever, there is a major and constant fear of an impending recession in our government’s economy. A recession is a downturn in the economy when output and employment are falling for at least a period of six months. (Krugman and Wells, 2006) This is due to a number of factors: people buying less, a decrease in factory production, growing unemployment, a slump in personal income, or an unhealthy stock market. (Harris, 2002) These factors including scarcity, choice, and opportunity cost are the reasons that an economy is considered in a recession and how something like this happens.
The PBS Frontline documentary, Money, Power, and Wall Street gives the audience a little history about the causes of the Great Recession. Frontline some of the major people from Giorogs Papakonstaniou, the Former Greek Financial Minister; Sheila Biar, chair member of the FDIC during the crisis, and Robert Wolf the chairmen of UBS Americans to name a few. The crisis of 2008 not only made about 8 and half million Americans unemployed, but also a loss of about $11 trillion in net worth. On top of that, the nation was divided with radical movements from the left and right like Occupy Wall St. and the Tea Party forming as a result of the crisis in 2008. Some may say that this was just a result of capitalism and not enough government regulation on Wall St.