Known also as Black Tuesday, October 29th left stockholders shattered with recorded losses reaching $40 billion dollars (Kelly, n.d.). Many banks and financial institutions began collapsing which led to irretrievable, uninsured deposits and savings. Fearing further loss, people began spending less which led to a decrease in production and an increase in unemployment. As companies began to fail, the government devised the Smoot-Hawley Tariff in order to protect American businesses. The Tariff placed high taxes on imports leading to a decline in international trade.
The Great Depression changed and effected Americans and the economy. Millions of Americans lost their jobs and homes. The economy went though a lot of failure of meeting financial obligation in banking and in trading. Because of this Europe and many other nations were set back from many of our abilities to help with their broken economies as well.The unemployment in the Depression was very scary. The Depression started with the market crash of 1929.
The collapse of the housing market and unemployment caused the most damage. Between 1991 to 1992 unemployment had gone back up to 2.6 million. Negative equity meant home owner were paying mortgages far higher than their homes were worth. Many people could simply not keep up with the increased prices and resulted in them losing their homes due to the bank repossessing them. The recession hit close to home for the Tories, effecting the middle class not just the working class of the industrial north.
This means that the prices for stock were too high, far higher than they were really worth, then they fell drastically. People who had borrowed money to buy high-priced stocks (intending to sell the stocks at a profit and repay lenders), went bankrupt. That’s further expounding on what I said about buying on margin. Black Tuesday also marks the beginning of the great depression (Regan3). Living conditions during this time were unsanitary and horrible.
True, during the time of the war, and for about ten years post-war, the US economy soared to all time highs. But shortly after, when the costs of the war had kicked in and the debts came rolling in, what followed was the greatest depression America had ever faced. People lived in “Hoovervilles”, thirteen million people became unemployed, the income of an average American family decreased by 40%, there was more emigration than immigration, racial tensions ran high, etc. These are just some of the consequences of the Great Depression, part of which was caused by the debt of a war that America could have avoided, thus avoiding such a hard blow by the Depression. Had America stayed out of the war, the economy might have not been affected as seriously as it was by the Great
Before the depression occurred, companies were making more goods than consumers were buying and because of this many employees were laid off and since no one had the money to pay their debts. So to make up for this lost cash everyone wanted to sell their stock and since everyone wanted to sell their stocks and no one wanted to buy stocks the value of stocks fell dramatically, This can be shown in the quote “A panic set in. Soon everyone wanted to sell their stock at the same time,” which shows how people reacted to the large fall in stock value. When the economic collapse occurred this caused the price of goods to rapidly deflate. And because Canada relied on the income of exports, many businesses and manufacturers became bankrupt.
Over the past few years, our economy has faced unthinkable challenges including millions upon millions of Americans losing or has lost their jobs. For the past two years the unemployment rate has average around nine percent. Among the 26 million who are unemployed, at least seven million individuals are working illegally in the United States. Some believe that legal workers have to compete with illegal immigrants for scarce jobs. Good news is, congress have come up with a program that will eliminate unauthorized employment.
Head Start suffered a cut of more than $10 million for the Head Start program affected for the 2008 Fiscal Year. The 2008 funding cut to Head Start means that programs will experience a decline in federal support by 11% since 2002. Federal support for Head Start kept a pace with the rise of inflation during this period. The budget rose from $6.54 billion in the fiscal year of 2002 to $7.77 billion for the fiscal year 2008. If Head Start programs received their full allocated monies from the ACF’s proposed 2009 budget increase, then programs would still operate in a negative stage by $923 million.
Many Americans found themselves very uphappy with the recent tax increases in 2013. They received their first check only to find it slightly lower then checks from the year before. There was a large outcry from the working class across America admonishing the current administration for further taxing the working middle class American public. The current administration estimates that universal healthcare will cost the United States over a trillion dollars over the next ten years. Many have safely assumed that this number could double, increasing a deficit on an already financially unstable government.
With jobs scarce and gas prices rising to four dollars a gallon, something has got to give. Unemployment rates are lingering at nine percent, which is double the numbers of 2001 (data.bls.gov, 2011) and things aren’t getting better at all. The recession is in full bloom and the promises of politicians who claimed “change” have since been silenced by criticisms from American’s who are in need of something to fix the many problems that have been ongoing for years. Healthcare is no different as the costs of appointments, premiums, and medications continue to rise as the value of our dollar continues to fall along with the economy. How did everything get so bad?