Great Recession Rethink

Max: Hi I’m Max Lessins. This is Crash Course for economics and today we’ll be discussing the Great Recession, focusing on the fiscal and monetary policies used to recover from the 2008 economic meltdown.

A nation’s economy plays a vital role in how a nation operates. The United States economy faces a large variety of problems in this paper; we will focus on 4 major economic problems, unemployment, inequality, federal debt, and the financial/credit market. All four issues are interconnected in some way with deep social and economic implications. These issues were emphasized during the Great Recession that hit the U.S. economy in 2007.In the following paper, we will look at each of the four topics individually as well as look at how each plays a significant role in one another’s overall impact on the U.S. economy as well as individuals in the United States. The United States plays a crucial role in the world economy, meaning that every issue and difficulty faced the United States economy has implications far outside the U.S., understanding how these issues relate to one another sheds insight into just how connected every area of the economy actually is.

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

Today the United States Americans more than ever; there is a constant fear of an awaiting recession due to the economy. The recession in the later 2000’s has been known as the greatest economic decline since the Great Depression. The United States of America, the banks and businesses are not able to succeed and are failing due to the market. Many people across America cannot afford their homes or bills due to the unemployment rate that seems to keep increasing. Many people blame this on the higher oil or gas prices, and the wars that the United States acts on. The recession has overall declined our economic activity in business profits, employment, and investment. This is all due to our falling market, and the rise of prices that so many Americans cannot afford.

In this report, the Great Recession and the current economic down turn in the United States will be discussed. This report will cover the definition of both a recession and depression, and how these two differ from one another. The report will then detail two significant factors that were involved in the formation of the Great Recession. Finally, the report will discuss the differences and similarities between the Great Recession and other recessions that have taken place in recent U.S. history.

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.

Ever since September 11, 2001, the vitality of America’s economy has never been the same. Aside from America already going through a recession since, the attacks by Islamic terrorists on American soil had escalated the situation in one of the worst ways possible. The purpose of this paper will highlight the issues regarding America’s recession and its overall impact on the economy.

In December of 2007, the United States entered a recession that was ignited by the global financial crisis. A recession is a period of decline in economic activity. The Great Recession, as Americans referred to the recession of 2007, was the longest recession since the Great Depression (Homan & Matthews , 2008). With inflation occurring and the housing market in shambles, Americans struggled to live during this horrific period in U.S. history. Millions of Americans are out of work, and U.S. companies are hesitant to hire employees. Lawmakers change financial policies to provide recovery to the country. The financial bailout is used to aid banks and states to build infrastructure. The Federal Reserve is printing money at an all-time high

The Great Recession that began in 2007 introduced people to a feeling not since felt since the Great Depression of the 30’s and 40’s. It reintroduced a new generation to the realization that we cannot take anything for granted. It sprung up fears in a fearless population, and out of it born a stress like no other. We can harness that stress; we own it as individuals, employees, as employers, as caretakers of the future.

Several years ago the economy in the United States took a real turn for the worst. It was one of the biggest economical down falls in history. Many people lost their homes toforeclosure when they became unable to make their mortgage payments. There are many reasons that people suddenly became unable to make their payments. As the unemployment rate increased from 5% in December of 2007 to 10.01% in October of 2009 (Bureau of Labor Statistics) many people lost their jobs. Another cause was that people had entered into bad loans with interest only or ballooning payment loans these types of loans were very common lending practice. Then when the housing market crashed people found themselves upside down in their loans, meaning that they now owed two or three times the value of their home. These are among some of the reasons people lost their homes. Now that the economy is starting to turn around and the federal government has kept the interest rates low.Is there any hope for all these people that have lost their homes to recover and own a home again?

The Great Recession, December 2007 through June2009 marks an unstable 18 months for the United States’ economy, that countless amounts of people won’t forget. The housing and bank markets during the recession were not recouping much money off loans and low interest rates, which cause both markets to nearly crash. This caused many Americans to lose their jobs and the unemployment rates to reach the highest numbers since the Great Depression. But ever since 2009, the economy has been an on slow but steady track up to being what it once was.

Since the Great Depression of the 1930s, the United States of America has experienced many recession. The most recent of these recessions began December of 2007 and lasted till about January of 2009. Within the time period, the United States lost approximately 8 trillion dollars when the housing market collapsed causing chaos in the financial market led to a collapse in business investments. As consumer spending and business investments declined, it led to the loss of 8.4 million jobs which then caused major employment contraction doubling the unemployment rate from 5% to 10%. Fear began spreading among fellow Americans as their job and financial security was hanging from a small threat, which led to a drastic decrease in consumer spending.

• As previously stated in the executive summary, the United States’ economy is currently stagnating. From week to week we may see a rise in one indicator while there is a fall in another indicator, but none of the rises or falls are drastic enough to have an overwhelming impact on the economy as a whole. Although the economy is not near as strong as it was before the 2008-2009 recession, arguably one of the biggest economic crises of the past decade, there has been much growth and strength throughout the past few years with this year being the first year in which the economy is in somewhat of a holding pattern. I believe, that even with the little growth and movement of the United States economy over the past year, it is still perhaps one of the strongest economies in the world at the moment.

The economic meaning of a recession is that the gross Domestic Product (GDP) has declined for two or more consecutive quarters. Unemployment rises, housing falls, stocks fall and the economy is in trouble. Whenever the government sees that the economy is entering a recession it is important for it to act. The U.S acted in two ways during the Great recession of 2008 through fiscal and monetary policies. Renaud Fillieule identifies that “ Monetary and credit expansions have been the main tools used by the U.S. government and central bank to try and recover economically from the Great Recession of 2008” (Fillieule r, Pg. 99 2016). These Keynesian policies are debatable among economist, none the less they were implemented and put the U.S on the road to recovery.

The “Great Recession” is commonly used to explain the massive economic contraction that occurred in the United States during the fourth quarter of 2007. However, the actions of the United States spanned to other nations, leaving massive effect on the global economy. One nation that took on serious financial burden during this recession was the United Kingdom. This nation first faced the effects of the Great Recession beginning in the first quarter of 2008. Overall, the initial mass effects on the nation can be attributed to the nation’s reliance on the financial sector. In fact, after partially stabilizing in 2009, the country struggled with a double-dip recession between 2010-12, and continues to struggle with some of these effects.