Perhaps the worst economic downturn in the history of the United States occurred from 1930-1939. The Great Depression led to domestic and international crises effecting the poor and wealthy alike. Many financial experts today continue to debate the cause of The Depression, although most agree that several events led to the economic decline. The famous stock market crash on October 29, 1929 is just one of many causes economists believe led to The Great Depression. Known also as Black Tuesday, October 29th left stockholders shattered with recorded losses reaching $40 billion dollars (Kelly, n.d.).
The Great Depression was a severe period of poverty and tragedy. It effected many other countries not just America; especially in Europe, where many countries had not fully recovered from the aftermath of World War I. The cost of World War I weakened the ability of the world to respond to a major crisis. America alone had ten billon dollars of debt from the war. In Germany America’s economic failure contributed to the rise of Adolf Hiltler, so the Stock Market Crash had a domino effect on our country and others.
About a month later, the Great Depression took action on the stock market and would cause it to crash and put America and other countries around the world into a huge crisis. Hoover would attempt to fix the economy but would never be able to.
c. severe cutbacks in the size of the federal government. d. a taxpayer revolt. e. a growing reliance on overseas trade to sustain the American economy. 3. The poor economic performance of the 1970s brought an abrupt end to a. American reliance on Middle Eastern oil.
Nation debt reached an all time high in the trillions, American jobs were being outsourced and the stock market was at a record low. Americans were afraid. Afraid that our weakness would be seen by our adversaries as an opening to attack. The nation was in dire need of not only a president, but a leader. One who understood the problems the average American was facing.
It did not monitor interest rates to help regulate the economy when overproduction and inflation had started to cause unemployment in 1928-29 and the economy seemed likely headed toward collapse. The Federal Bank also did not stop small banks from giving bad loans or from purchasing bad or high risk stock. High tariffs in the 1920s hurt foreign trade and prolonged the depression when it had hit. When Many other nations blamed the US for their economic collapse in 1929 claiming that the high US tariffs helped create their
Possibly the most important showdown was the debt-ceiling fight of August 2011. It “threatened the country's ability to meet its financial obligations and resulted in an unprecedented downgrade in the U.S. credit rating by Standard and Poor's. The subsequent failure of the bipartisan super-committee to reach a deal on $1.2 trillion in targeted budget savings over ten years unleashed automatic spending cuts for both defense and non-defense spending”
The economy is considered to be very unstable at the current time, and it is the duty of the United States government to do everything in their power to once again stabilize the once booming economy for the sake of the entire country and its citizens. Current Unemployment Rate Currently unemployment rates in the United Sates are a less than desirable 7.9%. Although, this number has decreased by 2.1% from its peak in recent years, it is still believed that there is a long way to go. Prior to the recession unemployment rates fluctuated between 4% and 6% (www.bls.gov, 2012). This increase in the unemployment rate is having considerable impacts on the economy.
Huge increase in US military spending has been one of the factors contributing to the deterioration of the American economy since 2001. (Billions) What is confined to this disagreement with the costs of such a world power are the negative attitudes towards militarism in a more vague sense. Western militarism frequently overlaps by means of civilian functions disturbing attitudes to militarism in general. As a result, when revelations come out that some Western armies may have trained dictators and human rights violators, the reasoning given may possibly be quite astonishing. (Anup) As an extension of such aggression in anger towards our own government is the amount of jobs lost when our government considers that moving away from military manufacturing would not necessarily end in the loss of jobs rather a decrease for cuts in other areas.
While the Great Depression started in the United States, it had a profound impact on several powerful European countries like Germany, the United Kingdom and France. These interdependent countries were traumatically affected by the United States’ failing market as they watched their own markets plunge into chaos. London’s Evening Standard reports that unemployment rates in the United Kingdom were up to seventy percent due to the drop in carrier ship production. The economy inside the United States was just as appalling as the countries it affected. During this time, the American dollar and trade was catastrophically weak.