The Decision That Drove the Economy Forward

Our economy is a machine that is ran by humans. A machine can only be as good as the person who makes it. This makes our economy susceptible to human error. A couple years ago the United States faced one of the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, which was the Great Recession. The Great Recession was a severe economic downturn that occurred in 2008 following the burst of the housing market. The government tried passing bills to see if anything would help it from becoming another Great Depression. Trying to aid the government was the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve went through a couple strategies in order to help the economy recover. The Federal Reserve provided three major strategies to start moving the economy in a better direction. The first strategy was primarily focused on the central bank’s role of the lender of last resort. The second strategy was meant to provide provision of liquidity directly to borrowers and investors in key credit markets. The last strategy was for the Federal Reserve to expand its open market operations to support the credit markets still working, as well as trying to push long term interest rates down. Since time has passed on since the Great Recession it has been a long road. In this essay we will take a time to reflect on these strategies to see how they helped.

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

In 2008, the world experienced a tremendous financial crisis which rooted from the U.S housing market; moreover, it is considered by many economists as one of the worst recession since the Great Depression in 1930s. After posing a huge effect on the U.S economy, the financial crisis expanded to Europe and the rest of the world. It brought governments down, ruined economies, crumble financial corporations and impoverish individual lives. For example, the financial crisis has resulted in the collapse of massive financial institutions such as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brother and AIG. These collapses not only influence own countries but also international area. Hence, the intervention of governments by changing and

First, I want to give you a little background on the Financial Crisis of 2008/2009. The Financial Crisis began in December of 2007, and by the fall of 2008 the economy was in a huge downfall. This all began in August of 2007 because of defaults in the subprime mortgage market, which sent a shudder through the financial markets. The former chairman of the Federal Reserve described the crisis of 2008/2009 as a “once-in-a-century credit tsunami”. Many firms, including commercial banks, Wall Street firms, investment banks, all suffered significant losses and eventually went bankrupt. This caused households and smaller businesses to have to pay higher rates on the money that they borrowed. This downfall wasn’t just

On October 3, 2008 President George W. Bush signed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, otherwise known as the “bailout.” The Purpose of this act was defined as to, “Provide authority for the Federal Government to purchase and insure certain types of trouble assets for the purpose of providing stability to and preventing disruption in the economy and financial system and protecting taxpayers, to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide incentives for energy production and conservation, to extend certain expiring provisions, to provide individual income tax relief, and for other purposes” (Emergency Economic Stabilization Act). In my paper I will explain and show the relationship between the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 and subprime lending, the collapse of the housing market, bundled mortgage securities, liquidity, and the Government 's efforts to bailout the nation 's banks.

The government stepped in and bailed out the banks for making poor decision and providing home loans to individuals who could not afford those loans. The government also bailed out large vehicle business like Ford and Chrysler that would not change their business modern to keep up with foreign vehicle companies that could produce low efficiency vehicle at a lower price. America had outsourced most of the manufacturing jobs and we no longer had the ability to fully employ our own workforce. Businesses could operate in foreign counties and make a profit. The hard-working American workers were pushed aside, because the company could make more profit by operating overseas and utilizing foreign

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 effects were immediate- shares fell sharply around the world after the bailout was rejected. The automakers, naturally, were among the hardest hit.

The Great Recession was an economic behemoth the likes the United States had never seen before since the Great Depression. In fact, the Great Recession of 2007-2009 was an unmitigated disaster for the US and world economy, its effects still lasting to this day. The Great Recession was spurred by an influx in subprime mortgages and loans. Normally, banks lend money to those they know are capable of paying it back with interest; however, in the early 2000s, banks took advantage of the unregulated sector of subprime loans, creating a substantial housing bubble at the cost of considerable profit. Soon millions of low-income and middle-class Americans were buying homes for much more than their normal income could pay for, but with ever increasing

the time of this crisis the president was Herbert Hoover, many placed blame for this crisis on him. They

In 2008, the United States went through one of the most significant economical period in history. The housing market and banks started to fail and people were unable to pay off their loans on the houses. This lead to a giant need for government intervention in determining which investment banks and corporations were worthy of being considered “too big to fail”. If they were in this category, the government would supply them with the funds necessary to not go bankrupt. Most of the time, the corporations would put this money towards consolidating their balance sheets, rather than solving the problems. This paper looks in depth into the 2008 financial crisis: the course

“The Great Recession of 2008 didn't just happen in one month. It took years to correct the easy-money policies and lax standards of Wall Street”. Corruption in Wall Street ran rampant in the months leading up to the recession. Many brokers on Wall Street poorly informed customers, and tied them into mortgages they simply could not sustain. Corporations could get away with corrupt actions due to a lack of regulation on business practices, specifically instituting regulations on big financial corporations. At the same time, the government bailed out multiple large-scale businesses, as an attempt to preserve struggling American industry. This ultimately proved not to be beneficial. As our mother remarked, “I did have an idea that we were going to be heading for at least a contraction in the market. But, I had absolutely no clue of the magnitude of it, and blindsided me a bit. I feel like it was protracted because of all of the bailouts that were offered… It might have had a more natural outcome if some institutions were allowed to fail…”. Ultimately, government efforts to prevent an impending recession were concentrated in areas that would only magnify its

The underlying problems that caused the financial crisis of 2008 began building before many economists and policymakers are willing to admit. Since the laissez-faire policies of the Reagan administration in the 1980s, inequality and unemployment heightened. “Between 1976 and 2006 (...) ation-adjusted per capita income increased by 64 percent, for the bottom 90 percent of households it increased only by 10 percent. For the top one percent of households it increased 232 percent,” (Wisman 2013, 932) causing an income gap. Another arsing issue was globalization after World War II. The economy’s structure changed and outdated previous economic policy. Manufacturing jobs were outsourced because labor was cheaper abroad; the US imported more goods than it exported, causing a trade deficit.

In December 2007, caused by the housing bubble, what is known as the Great Recession began (“The Great Recession”). Prior to this, people kept buying houses with high risk loans, because their mortgage-backed securities were technically making profits when the house values increased; however, when the house values started to decrease, those securities became worthless, thus people were not able to pay for the house—many people had their house confiscated. As a result of this wealth loss, consumer spending decreased sharply and many banks collapsed. The U.S. government tried to combat this issue, but many of the fiscal policies they had created were controversial because of their interference in the economy. One debate sparked on whether

In the latter part of 2008, the United States’ economy was rapidly plummeting - the stock market crashed, the housing bubble burst and gas prices skyrocketed. The majority of U.S. based firms faced the reality that they would not be able to survive during such desperate economic times. The U.S. automobile industry, in particular, began to buckle under the depressed economy. The government stepped in proposing a multi-billion dollar bailout to stimulate the economy and restore economic balance. The possibility of this unprecedented government intervention was condemned by many economists. If the government helped the ailing automotive industry, this industry would have to tighten their expenditures and plan for the future to prove to