Financial Crisis During World War II

The congress approved Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus package in February 2009 which cut taxes, extended unemployment benefits, and funded public works projects. The recession ended in July when the GDP had started to growth and turn positive. Soon the the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act had increased to $241.9 billion into the economy which had helped by the increased growth of robust 3.9 percent rate by early 2010. Obama had also pass  the Recovery Act four weeks into the first term and the GDP started to grow again by 2.6 percent in the second half of that year and unemployment and job losses had slowed.

During the early 2000 's, the United States housing market experienced growth at an unprecedented rate, leading to historical highs in home ownership. This surge in home buying was the result of multiple illusory financial circumstances which reduced the apparent risk of both lending and receiving loans. However, in 2007, when the upward trend in home values could no longer continue and began to reverse itself, homeowners found themselves owing more than the value of their properties, a trend which lent itself to increased defaults and foreclosures, further reducing the value of homes in a vicious, self-perpetuating cycle. The 2008 crash of the near-$7-billion housing industry dragged down the entire U.S. economy, and by extension, the global economy, with it, therefore having a large part in triggering the global recession of 2008-2012.

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.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act), is an economic stimulus package that was signed into law in February of 2009 (Grunwald, 2010). The Recovery Act was enacted to stimulate the United States (U.S) economy during the (2007-2009) recession (Investopedia. 2009). According to The White House, the Recovery Act “includes measures to modernize our nation's infrastructure, enhance energy independence, expand educational opportunities, preserve and improve affordable health care, provide tax relief, and protect those in greatest need. (The White House, United States Government, 2009)”.

The financial crisis emerged because of an excessive deregulation of business operation of financial institutions and of abusing the securitization mechanism in the absence of clearly defined rules to regulate this area in the American mortgage market (Krstić, Jemović, & Radojičić, 2013). Deregulation gives larger banks the opportunity to loosen underwriting lender guidelines and generate increase opportunity for homeownership (Kroszner & Strahan, 2013). After deregulation, banks utilized many versions of mortgage loans. Mortgage loans such as subprime and Alternative-A paper loans became available for borrowers challenged to find mortgage lenders before deregulation (Elbarouki, 2016; Palmer, 2015). The housing market has been severely affected by fluctuating interest rates and the requirement of large down payment (Follain, & Giertz, 2013). The subprime lending crisis has taken a toll on the nation’s economy since 2007. Individuals who lacked sufficient credit ratings or down payments resorted to subprime mortgages to finance their homes Defaults on subprime and other mortgages precipitated the foreclosure crisis, which contributed to the recent recession and national financial crisis (Odetunde, 2015). Subprime mortgages were appropriate for borrowers with substandard credit and Alternate-A paper loans were

In the midst of World War II, bread could be purchased for around $0.10, less than $1,000 for a brand new car, and a nice middle class house would sell for around $4,000 - $6,000. However, in our current day we all know these items, along with everything else, cost much more today than they did during the second world war, a substantially greater amount. This shows that we experienced a noteworthy amount of inflation since the war. Shortly thereafter, in the mid-to-late 1970s, inflation skyrocketed to double-digit levels, which threw America into hysteria. Ever since, the general publics anxiety dwindled along with inflation rates, but the same public is still timid when it comes in regard to inflation, even though we have recently experienced minimal levels over the past few years. Even though most everyone knows that prices go up over time, they still do not fully understand the forces behind inflation. Hopefully some of the uncertainties are clarified in the following paper. Inflation, along with purchasing power, is depicted and elucidated in terms with how the two are congruent to one another. Also, this paper notes how measurements are taken to predict future interest rates, which helps everyone from consumers to producers, so they can be prepared for the change in value of their dollar.

The U.S. economy is currently experiencing its worst crisis since the Great Depression. The crisis started in the home mortgage market, especially the market for so-called “subprime” mortgages, and is now spreading beyond subprime to prime mortgages, commercial real estate, corporate junk bonds, and other forms of debt. Total losses of U.S. banks could reach as high as one-third of the total bank capital. The crisis has led to a sharp reduction in bank lending, which in turn is causing a severe recession in the U.S. economy.

All the economy’s parts seem to be working together for a change: joblessness is under 5% - a 24 year low – yet inflation is holding steady at 3%, a combination that economists thought impossible” (Pooley). This article placed the economy in very favorable position, but the economy collapsed back in 2008 when Wall Street folded. In a video published by Johnathan Jarvis titled “The Cause and Effects of the 2008 Financial Crisis,” the video explains how the economy went from being healthy and vibrant, to desperate and helpless because investors were creating mortgages with people who were not financially stable, and those mortgagors were more than likely struggling to pay their debts prior to attaining a sub-prime mortgage loan. When these sub-prime mortgages defaulted, the house was reposed by the mortgagee and put on the market to sell. When the house went up for sale because of the default, the

The Great Recession lasted from December of 2007 until June of 2009, making it the longest recession since World War II. During this time, gross domestic product (GDP), inflation, unemployment, and interest rates were all greatly affected. The previously mentioned metrics are used to compare today’s economy to the economy during the Great Recession to see how the United States has rebounded since 2009. Monetary and fiscal policies were also implemented to combat the recession, and their effects determine whether or not the policies have a lasting effect in continuing to help the U.S. economy rebound.

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

In 2008, the US economy entered a period known as the Great Recession. This was primarily the result of banks granting housing loans too freely and at variable rates. When the rates rose too high for the home owner to pay, they forfeited. Then the banks had unpaid loans and houses that they could not sell. This resulted in a chain of events that impacted the banking, insurance and investment industries. The decline in construction and spending resulted in an increase in the unemployment rate to as high as 10% in 2009. This period of Recession was the worst since the Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s. (Great Recession in the United States. (2011, September 11). In Wikipedia, Retrieved June 20, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Recession_in_the_United_States)

In the year of 2007, the Great Recession began. It all started at the bustling Wall Street. It was a pandemic that brought dilemma to the businesses, to the employees and to the elated new home owners. JP Morgan Chase was one of the major banks participated in falsifying the mortgage loans, and they suffered consequences for what they did. The mortgage loans gave temporary joy but longtime misery to home buyers. The federal government filed a lawsuit, and it reached a settlement. The tragedy resulted to Global and Financial reforms.

Congress and the Obama Administration passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA; P.L. 111-5). This was a $787 billion package with $286 billion of tax cuts and $501 billion of spending increases that relative to what would have happened without ARRA is estimated to have raised real GDP between 1.5% and 4.2% in 2010 but increased real GDP by progressively smaller amounts in the years that followed.96

Due to such events as the subprime mortgage crisis, the auto market and Wall Street’s failure, the United States suffered a severe economic blow. Looking at the situation from an economic view, supply is supposed to equal demand. Due to the mortgage crisis and the careless attempts of some to make money, there is a superfluous amount of empty homes throughout the United States. In the subprime mortgage crisis, the nature of the failure was the inability to account for money given to individuals, who lack the appropriate requirements. In order to obtain a loan, collateral is needed. References were not being checked and poor credit history went ignored. People were obtaining loans and not paying attention to the interests rates associated. “This time around, the slack standards allowed millions of high-risk borrowers to get easy home mortgages. When this so-called subprime market collapsed beginning about a year ago, ordinary working people bore the brunt” (Gallagher, 2008). Companies were so anxious to place people in homes, that it cost them billions of dollars and