Haley Strother
Craig Jumper
Microeconomics
11/20/2016
Causes of the Recession of 2008 During the 2008 Recession, Horowitz painted a bleak picture by stating “…small luxuries seemed almost necessities in happier economic times. But no more for lots of folks...the murky financial outlook and recession fears are factors”. The 2008 Recession resulted in the collapse of the robust US economy and affected most of its citizens. It also had a domino effect, as economies of other countries of the world suffered from this phenomenon. The 2008 Recession is mainly related to the 2007-08 financial crisis and subprime mortgage crisis, both of which severely distressed the American economy and then global economies. Although the impact and timing of economic decline varied from one nation to another, the 2008 Recession refers to the period of financial shortfalls in the US and world markets starting from the late 2000s and continuing till the early 2010s. Since there was shortage of valuable assets in the market economy, cash crunch, and other major financial problems, several business sectors underperformed, trade imbalances were there, consumers’ buying potential reduced, debt levels increased, unemployment levels amplified, prices of petroleum and other key commodities augmented, and so forth. As a result, nearly all sections of the population were affected by this recession and it took a number of years to recover. As above-mentioned, the recession had its origins in the property
During 1997-2006, house prices rose 85 percent. This led to an irresponsible consumer spending spree. Millions of people bought a house that they could not afford. Government regulatory agencies and mortgage lenders became less strict with credit restrictions so that people could buy homes without making any down payment. In 2007, however, the home values and sales began to decline. Due to the loss of trillions of dollars in home value, a record number of borrowers defaulted on their mortgage payments. America was put into a recession in 2008 because of the contraction of corporate spending and consumer purchased. The prices of consumer goods spiked, while employment declined. On October 3, 2008, former President Bush signed the Troubled Asset Relief Program; however, the bill did not restore the economy as a whole. By June 2009, America's economic recovery was at its weakest since the end of the Second World War. I chose this event in history because it had a major effect on America’s economy and changed the course of history. Historians need to study the Great Recession because America should learn from their mistakes. The Great Recession was due to different factors; however, if the regulations on credit restrictions were not tampered with, then the severity of the recession could have been
The recession of 2008 is also called the ‘Great Recession’, said to have begun in December 2007, and took a turn for the worse in September 2008, and it was a severe economic problem expanded globally. This recession affected the world economy, and is said to have been the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression. The decline in the Dow Jones this time was -53.8%. Since the official start of the recession in December 2007, and through June 2010 there have been about 2.3 million homes foreclosed in the United States. In 2012, the state with the most foreclosures in January alone was California, with 51,584 houses being repossessed. Unemployment during this collapse was 8.5%, and continued to increase to about 10% as of 2010. People’s reaction to this recession was a huge decrease in spending and borrowing from banks, but an increase in saving.
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
The recession of 2008, better known as the Great recession has been America’s worst economic downfall since the Great Depression. Although it was here in America that economic issues began spiraling out of control, the economic crisis made its way to some of the strongest economic countries in other parts of the world. Due to the housing bubble burst, the subprime mortgage crisis, and stock market crash, we are in a total debt of “$18,152,064,358,208 including federal, state, and local.” (Get Involved)
George Santayana, a Spanish poet and philosopher said, "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it." This quote applies to the Great Depression of 1929 and the Great Recession of 2008. There are many similarities between the two, like the causes, the actual events, and the aftermaths. Several factors led to the Great Depression, which were the following: overproduction by business and agriculture, unequal distribution of wealth, Americans buying less, and finally, the stock market crash of 1929. The Great Recession also had similar factors leading to it, like the housing “bubble” burst and less consumer spending. In both events, the Presidents enacted programs that they believed would help the American people.
The “Great Recession of 2008" hit The United States and the rest of the world with a force not seen since the Great Depression less than a century ago. December of 2007 saw an unemployment rate of 5.7% as the economy was rolling forward on the back of the high-profiled housing market funded by aggressive loans to consumers with sub-par credit. (National Bureau of Economic Research) This created a proverbial “House of Cards” that fell apart that same month and over the course of two years; the unemployment rate would nearly double as The United States would lose over 8 million jobs according the National Bureau of Economics. The cause of The Great Recession can’t simply be quantified to just one person, agency or company. However, in the broad
The recession of 2007-2009 played a great roll in how many companies in the United
After I got the assignment and read what the topics were, I started doing research on all the topics you gave us. After doing the research I decided I was most interested in the United states recession in 2008. It also interested me in finding out what we have done, in the middle of doing, and what we are going to do to get out of the recession. I decided to choose this topic about the US economy and what we were and are doing to get out of the recession because I wanted to learn more about why we went into a recession and how we are now working on how to get out of one. I wanted to write about all the things that led up to the recession and write about what we are doing and going to do to fix the recession. I started off by finding a lot
Levin, Carl, and Tom Coburn. United States. United States Senate. Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse. Washington: Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, 2010.
The Great Depression and Great Recession were two unique events that had monumental impact on the economy. Both had similarities, and differences that made them unique. The Great Depression was caused by people living on credit, and when it was time to pay they didn’t have the money, this happened on a wide spread scale. The crashing of the stock market was what officially started the Great Depression in 1929. The great recession was caused by subprime mortgages as well, as risk taking by financial institutions. Much like the depression people were living over their heads, and when it was time to pay their bills they were unable to. Both the Great Depression and Great Recession were brought on by bubbles, for the Great Depression it was the stock market bubble, for the Great Recession it was the housing bubble.
Ever since the Recession of 2008, the process of acquiring employment has become extremely challenging and exhausting. After months of searching, a significant amount of job seekers are willing to accept any job offers that will allow them to put food on the tables. If you follow the United States’ economic recovery, you probably know that there are about 10.5 million unemployed Americans and constant debates about how to create more jobs. What you may not know is that there are actually four million open jobs waiting to be filled. So how is it possible and who is there to blame?
During the recession of 2008 and the years that followed, jobs were very difficult to find for people. However, now that the recession of 2008 is dwindling and new jobs are being added to the economy, a labor shortage problem exists. Steve of explains, “the great conundrum of the U.S. economy today is that we have record numbers of working age people out of the labor force at the same time we have businesses desperately trying to find workers, “ (Moore, 2015). The consequences of unfulfilled jobs in the US economy prevents companies from making money to insert into the
The “Great Recession,” the name given to the financial crisis that occurred in the United States between 2007 and 2009, saw the biggest contraction of the US economy since World War II. Real GDP fell as sharply as a -6.4% annual rates and unemployment rose above ten percent in the aftermath of the crisis. The primary culprit of the Great Recession was the US housing market. New financial instruments that allowed for lending to subprime customers, along with deregulation of the banking industry, and asymmetric information produced by credit agencies all played significant roles in these happenings. Moral hazard on behalf of financial product providers ultimately led to the asymmetric information that allowed the housing market to collapse.
Inflation is at approximately 1%, which is far below the Fed’s target of 2%. Most recently, the FED’s beige book from September of 2016 reported that national economic activity is either flat or expanding gradually across the twelve Federal Reserve Districts. Most contacts across the districts expected moderate economic growth in the next few months. Labor market conditions were tight, with moderate payroll growth and moderate upward wage pressures. Prices were observed to increase slightly. Although the current statistics are insightful, I will explain my view of the longer term trends in the U.S. economy through three primary lenses: GDP growth, unemployment, and inflation.
Most research on the 2008 financial crisis and the ensuing recession focuses more on its development as opposed to its effect on the economy. This review of literature will examine the progression of the crisis, its development onto economic recession and its impact on the various sectors of the economy.