Mussolini’s economic battle for the Lira was a failure, although it did have a few positive outcomes. The battle for the Lira was where Mussolini made the Lira artificially expensive- by fixing the Lira at 90 to £, rather than 150. Mussolini planned for this action to reduce inflation and show the world that Italy was a mighty power. And indeed there were a few positive outcomes: that it made it easy for Italians to buy abroad and perhaps boosted Italy’s prestige. However, in reality it made it hard for Italy to sell abroad (due to the higher prices), so Italy lost its competitiveness on the world market.
The extent of unity within Italy varied immensely between 1896 and 1914, for example in the late 1890’s the North-South divide was undeniable and acted as the socio-economic and political split that separated the country entirely and questioned any possible solidarity within Italy. Unfortunately Italy’s government was equally unstable during this time which is evident as she had 20 different Prime Ministers leading the country between 1896 and 1914; this suggested that no successful decisions could be made. Although, in 1903 this changed with the introduction of Giovanni Giolitti who brought in many reforms that made the Liberal institutions far more secure through changes such as the introduction of real wages which in turn boosted the economy. Personally, I feel that despite Italy’s political and economic growth between 1896 and 1914 the extent of the unification remained questionable, therefore in the following essay I will be examining the key features of this time period to come to a reliable conclusion. Italy was not a democracy in 1896 so the right to vote was held only by the rich due to the parliament being dominated by wealthy landowners, businessmen and professional classes; this resulted in the masses having no say in the Italian government and suggested a low level of equality which consequently led to mass levels of unrest.
Jackson and the Second Bank of the United States. The war of 1812 left our economy in turmoil. The banks had started printing more bank notes than they could back to pay off the debt accumulated during the war. This only made things worse by causing high inflation. Also in the wake of the war our national credit score had dropped dramatically and was close to a record low making it nearly impossible to finance necessary operations of the Federal Government.
The recession of 2007 and 2009 has affected everyone, but mostly middle class people are the ones who are hit the hardest when it comes to economic troubles. Oil prices and inflation of prices in other markets had affected the middle class’ confidence in product consumption. With less private spending, an economy cannot thrive. That is why it was important that the tax cuts were issued to help increase this spending. If people spend more then more jobs are created and business investments are made to further help increase total GDP.
The years of 1896 – 1914 are those of Liberal Italy, the country of ‘Italy’ as we know it today had come about roughly between the years of 1870 to 1871, the significance of this is that by 1896 the newly formed country had not been unified by any means for a great amount of time, meaning unification was likely to be strained because bringing large regions together takes time, as we see in the years prior. A great significance that did not support United Italy was language. 2% of the population at the time spoke ‘Mainstream’ Italian, which would lead to massive hold ups in any coalition. This is broken down into two problems, direct communication and problems with allegiance. Spoken communication was a small factor, as only a certain population had a large reason to speak it in the first place; lowly or poor people had little say in political matter making their language less relevant.
Figure 3 shows the changes of global economic power over time. There are many reasons for the shifts in economic power such as the Second World War and the collapse of the British Empire. In 1913, Britain had a GDP almost twice the size of The USA's and made up 37% of the world's economy. By 1950, Britain's economic influence had decreased, its GDP now making up only 7% of the global economy. During this period The USA had become the world's largest economic power, making up 27% of the world's economy compared to the 19% in 1913.
However during bad times there was an access of inventory which led to problems. Another issue in the auto industry is the interest rates as high interest rates led to a decrease in consumer demand for vehicles due to higher monthly payments. Eaton’s strategy to counteract a downturn was to set aside built up cash balance of $7.6 Billion or $21.13 per share as a cushion for the next downturn. Eaton’s move had critics but results showed that Chrysler’s pension was fully funded for the first time in almost 40 years and their credit rating was also upgraded to single A by major credit agencies. Without the implementation of Eaton’s strategy Chrysler’s credit rating would be poor.
A whole lot of us are stuck with credit-card debt that goes up each month, mortgages worth more than our homes and student loans that extend into infinity. So it's only natural that we look at the debt crisis from the bottom up: from the perspective of the 99% who are getting screwed. But what if we instead looked at this whole mess from the top down, from the point of view of the 1%: the billionaires and venture capitalists in Mitt Romney's world? Maybe, just maybe, their problem is our problem. In fact, as I have come to see it, short of civilization-ending revolution, solving the debt crisis might actually mean saving the 1%.
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
To go along with the 4,400 Americans that wont be coming home to their families, there were over 32,000 Americans wounded in this war. So was this $4 trillion dollar war really wort our time and the lives it cost us? I say no, I feel we spent far too long helping a country that wanted nothing but for us to leave their country for years. We have cost too many lives, and have changed too many lives with injuries to justify a war where we simply just pull out. The results did not justify the losses America took, including how negative our image has become over the years, the financial hole we dug ourselves into, and the way we've affected Americans for the