...Evan DiLauro ECON 152 12/3/13 The State of the United States Economy By looking at the past five years of data, it is clear that the United States economy is in a state of rebound from the Great Recession. The data shows that before the recession the United States’ economy was operating at a solid level. The recent numbers show that the economy is on its way back to the state it was in before the recession hit. The Great Recession began in December 2007 due to major factors that lead to economic turmoil. Causes of the recession include failure of the federal to stem the tide of toxic mortgages, breakdowns in corporate governance, a excessive mix of risky barrowing by the households and wall street, key policy makers were not prepared for the crisis, and breaches in accountability and ethics at all levels. Due to the combination of these factors the Great recession was started and did not officially end until June 2009. During this time the unemployment rate took an all-time high and GDP growth was slowed down and at one point went negative. This was a rough time for the United States financially. Many people were in debt and did not have a job. The housing market also crashed, leaving Americans with little money and high prices on real-estate. Consumer cutbacks took a major increase, which also increased inflation, which lead to the decrease in GDP. Although the recession ended in 2009, it was the worst year for the United States unemployment rate. The annual unemployment...
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...The Federal Reserve Response to the Recent Recession Rahman R. Funn Webster University BUSN 5620 [ July 23, 2012 ] Ms. Lynn Bailey Abstract This term paper examines the history of the Federal Reserve System and takes a look at what causes a recession and how the FED responded to the most recent one. A recession can cripple a nation if not handled properly. With this paper, I explain how necessary interest rate cuts, the purchase of bonds and mortgage backed securities, and company bailouts were needed to prevent a second Great Depression. These actions will result in the United States creating low, short term-interest rates (near zero) through 2014. The Federal Reserve Response to the Recent Recession This paper examines the history of the Federal Reserve (FED) and how they responded to the recent recession. The goal of this paper is to give the reader insight on the history of the Federal Reserve System and how it was formed. The reader will gain knowledge of what a recession is and how the FED responded to the recent one. The data used for this paper consist of a literature review of articles from the internet websites of NY Times, Federal Reserve. History of the Federal Reserve System (FED) The Federal Reserve System, commonly known as the FED, is the central bank of the United States. Congress established this bank (signed off by President Woodrow Wilson)...
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...Depression & Recession Have you ever noticed how history seems to repeat itself? Have you ever heard someone say that we study the past to prevent it from happening again? Well if you take a look at history we are repeating it, with the Great Depression right now we are in what is known as the Great Recession, there are some similarities along with differences. The Great Depression sent many Americans into an economic crisis unlike any the county has experienced before. With this downturn it put millions of hardworking people into poverty, and took about a decade for the market and federal government to restore wealth. The Great Recession was the 2nd worst economic situation to happen to the United States, which started with housing market crash. The Great Depression is similar to the current United States economic/ financial situation. In 1929 a worldwide economic depression happened known as the Great Depression which lasted 10 years. In the 20's the United States had a thriving economy people were buying stocks without any worry. On September 3, 1929, the stocks peaked and then started to drop, on October 29, 1929 the stock market had crashed and millions of people have lost some if not all their money in the stocks. With the United States government stock market being the center for all countries all other countries were affected from it as well. Unlike today's economy banks did not have insure deposits so when banks failed all people lost money. With the loss of money...
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...Recession In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction. It is a general slowdown in economic activity.[1][2] Macroeconomic indicators such as GDP (gross domestic product), investment spending, capacity utilization, household income, business profits, and inflation fall, while bankruptcies and the unemployment rate rise. Recessions generally occur when there is a widespread drop in spending (an adverse demand shock). This may be triggered by various events, such as a financial crisis, an external trade shock, an adverse supply shock or the bursting of an economic bubble. Governments usually respond to recessions by adopting expansionary macroeconomic policies, such as increasing money supply, increasing government spending and decreasing taxation. Definition In a 1975 New York Times article, economic statistician Julius Shiskin suggested several rules of thumb for defining a recession, one of which was two down consecutive quarters of GDP.[3] In time, the other rules of thumb were forgotten. Some economists prefer a definition of a 1.5% rise in unemployment within 12 months.[4] In the United States, the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is generally seen as the authority for dating US recessions. The NBER defines an economic recession as: "a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment...
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...Bryant and Stratton College ECON220: The History of Recessions in the U.S. Instructor: P, Created by: Brandon April 8, 2014 Throughout history the United States has gone through many economic ups and downs and has tried to create new procedures to ensure that the same problem does not occur again. In this presentation we are going to look at some of the recessions that the country has endured, how these recessions happened, when, and how the government attempted to correct the problem. While there are many different opinions on how to correct and prevent these recessions from happening we are going to look at the facts that lead to these crisis’ in the U.S. economy. The financial press often states the definition of a recession as two consecutive quarters of decline in real GDP. NBER (National Bureau of Economic Research) states that a recession is a period between a peak and a trough, which does not necessarily always consist of two consecutive quarters of decline in real GDP but a significant decline in economic activity that spreads across the economy and can last from a few months to more than a year. [1] The first recession we are going to explore is The Great Depression which many say started as a recession. Although the economy began to decline in the middle of 1929 and continued to fall until the first few months of 1933, Black Tuesday, (October 29, 1929) was the day the stock market crashed and what many people affiliate to the beginning of...
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...Nick Shepard 2/10/2014 Individual Assignment #1 Summary The United States of America’s economy has found itself on the tail end of a recession that supposedly ended four years ago according to some economists (MSN). Though America may be out of the recent recession, there are many factors in the United States economy that powers its members into believing that the recession is still clouding the air. A significant example of such an influential aspect of the economy is the manufacturing sector of America. Living through the unpleasant time of the recession, America saw a nearly doubled unemployment rate from 2008 to 2010. Figure 1 (Floating Path) shows a timeline of the most recent recession in U.S. history with unemployment moving from 8% to about 16% in a one and a half year timespan. As of a few years ago, the jobs lost in the recession had not come back until recently where the current unemployment rate is about 14%. Figure 1 Companies have increasingly continued to outsource most of their work to countries all over the world. China is a large provider of goods that have been outsourced from the United States because of lower wages paid to their workers resulting in a much cheaper production. The production companies have not been able to keep up with the efficiency of production companies overseas in China for many years which has resulted in the struggling manufacturing sector of the United States. Not only is China taking jobs away from Americans in the manufacturing...
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...The United States economy, based on recent history of past recessions, should be going forward and getting better, but is it? According to statistics from Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), the United States is still trying to recover. The gross domestic product rate keeps going up and down; it does not keep going up, as it did in past recessions. What is to become of the United States if President Obama cannot get us out of the recession? EXPECTED U.S. GDP GROWTH RATE GOING FORWARD The gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate is an important indicator of the U.S. economic health. The slope of the yield curve – the spread between long and short - term interest rates – is a good predictor of future economic activity. As these slopes shift, you will get periods of high and low growth in GDP. There are three different methods of determining GDP. The first one is estimating each industry’s gross output and subtracts intermediate inputs from other industries to derive each industry’s residual value-added, which is sometimes called the production approach (Wells and Krugman, 2009). The second method is the income approach, which measures the income earned by the different factors of production (Wells et al). The third method is the final expenditures approach, which shows what is happening across different types of spending throughout the economy, usually done annually (Wells et al)...
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...Unemployment in the United States Unemployment is something that has been problematic in the United States for over a hundred years. Throughout the last century the United States has seen Unemployment rates that have been high as well as rates that have been low. During the past two or three weeks I have been researching the topic beginning with October 29th, 1929, the start of the great depression, all the way until modern day. It has been an interesting few weeks and I’m excited to analyze everything that I have discovered. The Great Depression is considered to be the largest and longest lasting crash that the American economy has taken to date. The Great Depression really began during the summer of 1929. That summer American consumer spending began to fall, and this caused unsold product to gather. While this was occurring the prices of stock kept rising, and by October of 1929 the stock prices were unreasonably high. October 24th is known as black Thursday; on this day nearly 13 million shares were trades which scared the people of Wall Street. October 29th 1929 fell on a Tuesday that year. This was the day that the great depression truly started. Almost 16 million shares were traded on this day. It created a panic on Wall Street and soon after millions of investors lost all of their money. The loss of money in circulation caused consumer spending to drop, and this caused the supply of products to drop. Many companies went out of business, and those who didn’t lay off...
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...bankruptcy helps in understanding, bankruptcy trends in both United States and Canada. Every year, over 100, 000 Canadians usually file for a consumer proposal or personal bankruptcy. In 2013, close to 120,000 Canadians filed for a consumer proposal and bankruptcy (Modest Money. 2014). While the percentage of personal bankruptcies dropped by 3 percent, the number of consumer proposals increased by 5.5 percent. This rise in the number of filing for debt relief illustrate a long term trend about the increasing number of Canadians whose debt has grown faster than their earnings. Statistics Canada report revealed that...
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...Running head: CAUSE OF ECONOMIC CONDITIONS IN THE UNITED STATES AND THE UNETHICAL BUSINESS THAT LED TO IT Final Paper James Smith Hodges University GEB/PAD 6376 Dr. Forrer Week Due: 14 Due: 08/14/2011 Submitted: 08/10/2011 INTRODUCTION (Part 1) Why has the unemployment rate been above 12 percent for the last several years? Why have so many prior successful businesses closed in the last four years? Why have so many major corporations and publicly traded companies filed for bankruptcy? Why did a house that used to cost $200,000.00 just sell for $40,000.00? Why are foreclosures at the highest rate in US history? Maybe the question to ask is what has caused all of this? There are so many questions to be answered when it comes to the economic conditions in the United States. How did it get into the current condition? What were the signs of slipping into the crisis (economic indicators)? Whose actions were responsible? Was the responsible party also guilty of unethical behavior (big issue) or was it accidental. How long will it take for the economy to get back to being productive? In the past, America has been a very productive, successful country. There have been other recessions and a depression that have affected the U.S. but for some reason this current crisis was started by a completely different chain of events. What was the chain of events that triggered this...
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...What is the Current Macroeconomics Situation in the United States ? Roseanne Jones Oct. 12, 2014 Economics What is the current macroeconomics situation in the United States? How does unemployment, inflation, or recession effect our economy or our worrying about our economy? It’s no secret that since 2008 The United States has been in a recession. This is troubling since the United States is one of the leading economy countries of the world. The United States in recession has Americans as well as other countries wandering, what would be next for everyone? The recession has been since 2008. Unemployment rates were at an all time high by 2009 at 10%. As our unemployment was rising so was our fiscal deficit of our GDP. The Government knew it was time for them to take action and it would have to be something different. They tried to tide over the recession by relying on the expansionary fiscal policy. At first it did not have the effect that the government had hoped for but that was soon to change. As the government followed the expansionary fiscal policy they began to see positive changes. The rise in CSI was growing at a moderate and that led to less worry about inflation increasing. It was followed by a steep decline in the Fed rate. Since 2009 the Fed rate has been close to...
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...Research Paper The Effects of the Great Recession on the Auto Industry Submitted by Luis A. Castro Prepared for Professor John Machnic BUSN 6120, Managerial Economics Summer 1, 2012 Section: OE Webster University July 24, 2012 CERTIFICATE OF AUTHORSHIP: I, Luis A. Castro, certify that I am the author. I have cited all sources from which I used data, ideas, or words, either quoted directly or paraphrased. I also certify that this paper was prepared by me specifically for this course. ____________ 07/24/2012 Signature Date Introduction The automotive industry in the United States is a key factor in economic growth because of the significant impacts on all major industries and cultures. Automotive industry is one of the largest industries in the United States. Historically, it has helped 3 to 3.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). It directly employs more than 1.7 million people who are involved in the design, manufacture and distribution of parts, components to install, sell and service the components. The industry of auto uses $16 to $18 billion annually for the research and development of the products. By excluding the automotive sector, it is difficult to determine the effects of global recession with in United States (Gereffi, 2005). Recently, if the analysis is done it can be clearly seen that the automotive industry has fallen on hard times. However, the U.S. continues to...
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...Is Lack of Jobs in the United States the cause for recession since 2007? Is Lack of Jobs in the United States the cause for recession since 2007? As per John Fitzgerald Kennedy former president of The United States of America (1961-1963): “The American, by nature is optimistic. He is experimental, an inventor, and a builder who builds best when called upon to build greatly”. Although this great democratic country has had bleak periods in its economic history timeline because political, money, and wars through-out time. However, Americans recuperate their path back to brilliant and fascinating rich economy. It is not easy to do so, to get back into good economical shape, however it is feasible. In the 20th century, ending of the 1920’s a severe worldwide economic depression ever experienced in the industrialized force. Although the Great Depression commenced in the United States, it spread over to 15 countries to say the least. Causing gargantuan unemployment rates ever recorded in America and Europe. Moreover, it stroked partially Japan and Latin America. The devastating economy deficiency went on to reach its peak point until 1933, which marked the year that America started to recovery, but went on for almost 7 more years. Approximately lasting till 1939. After this awful period, another, but not as large compared to the Great Depression. In the early 1980’s the country experienced another recession causing yet again employment lack and GDP (gross domestic price) to rise...
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...characteristics that are associated with the rate of the GDP. When the economy is going good, unemployment is usually low and wages normally increase. The stock market is usually effected with a big change, up or down, in GDP. Negative GDP growth plays a role in determining a recession, a period when real GDP falls for six months. “Real GDP does not always grow smoothly—sometimes it collapses suddenly, and the result is an economic downturn.” (O’Sullivan, 2014, p. 302). Sometimes this economic downturn can lead to a depression, a severe recession. Moderate contraction and expansion cycles are part of the normal economic system. Throughout history there have been many fluctuations in the GDP of the United States caused for various reasons such as drastic changes in the stock market, oil prices, world events, and wars. Some fluctuations have had more wide-spread, lasting effects than others. The Great Depression was the time from 1929 to 1933 when the real GDP took a nosedive, creating the “most severe disruptions to ordinary economic life in the United States during the twentieth century.” (O’Sullivan, 2014, p. 303). The effects of the Great Depression were felt throughout the world. In 1933, the United States GDP was sitting at -45.32%. The country was still with the grip of the Depression. Many things contributed to that dark time in our history...
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...The United States economy has experienced many ups and downs for the past 42 years. There are many changing factors that influence the economy which includes the Gross Domestic Product, the government deficit, inflation, unemployment, and employment. Each of these factors give an indication to some degree of the current state of the United States economy. However, the strength of the economy has done anything but stay constant since 1970. Since 1970, each of the previous stated factors have changed year to year. By looking at each of the factors individually, one can get a general sense of the current state of the economy and possibly make future predictions as to where the economy is headed. Since 1970, GDP has steadily grown linearly. There has only been a few years where the real GDP has dropped but only by an insginificant amount. However, there was one year where the GDP dropped by $126 billion in the year 1982. During this year, the United States experienced a recession. However, the following year, the GDP was able to grow more than the amount it decreased the previous year; it increased $300 billion, thus, offsetting the loss of the prior year. After this minor recession, there was little to no decrease in GDP in the subsequent years. From 1997-2000, GDP experienced a huge amount of growth each year for four consecuvtive years. This growth was during the internet stock bubble. There were many new internet startups during these years and many people investing into...
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