...similarities and differences in the Presidencies of Barack Obama and Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt became President during a trying time for America. The Great Depression was in full swing caused by the fact that Wall Street and the banks had collapsed causing millions of people or about 25 percent of the population. to be without jobs or financial security (Hiltzik). When Roosevelt came into office he put together an economic package known as the New Deal in order to help alleviate the crisis and get men back to work. Almost seventy years later in 2008 the country was in a recession due to another Wall Street and the banks once again collapsed due in part because of large corporations like GM defaulting on loans....
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...black president of the United States, Barack Obama is making history. “The New New Deal” which is a book written by Michael Grunwald goes into great detail of Obama before presidency and during presidency. I believe that this book is somewhat uninteresting, but very informative and it would be great for someone interested in Obama’s acts as the president. The book was published in 2012 in New York, NY by Simon & Schuster, Inc. Michael Grunwald, the author, presents many facts throughout the book and he also expresses his opinions on certain things. “The New New Deal” shows how Obama’s acts and plans as president were a success. The author in the beginning of the book...
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...University GB512 Business Communication Dr. Sue Pettine Prepared by Katherine M. Moore Student September 22, 2011 Contents Executive Summary……………………………………………………… 3 Introduction …………………………………………………………………. 3 Background……………………………………………………………………. 3 Potential Problems and Solutions ………………………………………………. 5 Conclusion and Recommendation ……………………………………………… 7 References ……………………………………………………………………. 7 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The purpose of this research proposal is to take a look at the economic crisis in the United States. Our country is currently facing one of the worst crises since the Great Depression. Because of this financial crisis many people are facing many anxieties today. In order to work on a solution for this dilemma, we must first admit that we are in a dreadful predicament. This is not the time to disregard the economic setback. We must take a look at our financial situation not only in the United States but globally as well. When a nation is in a crisis there is a tendency to shift the responsibility on just one person. In this research proposal we will look at the economy as a whole. We will tackle the many hard questions that arise when a crisis hit. Some of the hard questions that we will embark upon are the unemployment rate, foreclosures and federal deficit. INTRODUCTION As I began my research, I first...
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...problems faced by any person is unemployment. Unemployment may lead to loss of self-esteem, depression, and chronic worry about how to provide for dependents. Underemployment is when a person is either not actually out of a job, but due to need for money, has taken a job which does not allow him (her) to take care of the people and housing as it was done before. It also may include joblessness when people give up on looking for a job. Both situations can be stressful and lead to serious emotional and physical illness. It is not only the loss of income… but also represents loss of control over what may happen in the future to their home and family. A parent no longer able to supply children with what they and most of their friends have had in the past may develop a sense of failure or shame. Unemployment (also underemployment) is a serious social problem, especially since most of those experiencing unemployment are dealing with something that was lost through no fault of their own and reversal of it is also out of their control. The amount of people unemployed is expressed as a percent of the total work force, and has been regarded as a marker for how the economy is doing in general. Calculation of the rate of REAL UNEMPLOYMENT (the unemployed and the underemployed and those who have given up) is actually much higher. While there is no agreement on any one cause of the great depression of 1929, it is generally noted the final blow to the economy was ‘Black Tuesday’ when panic...
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...declaring the stimulus as one of the biggest mistakes made by President Obama is in my opinion an inaccurate one. The Stimulus or The Recovery Act, was an economic stimulus package enacted by the 111th United States Congress in February 2009 and signed into law on February 17, 2009, by President Barack Obama. To respond to the Great Recession, the primary objective was to save and create jobs almost immediately. Secondly to provide temporary relief programs for those most impacted by the recession and invest in infrastructure, education, health, and renewable energy. The cost of the stimulus package was estimated to be $787 billion at the time of passage, later revised to $831 billion between 2009 and 2019. The Act included direct spending in infrastructure, education, health, and energy, federal tax incentives, and expansion of unemployment benefits and other social welfare provisions. It also created the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. The goal of the stimulus plan was not only to boost the economy but to increase confidence in and restore faith in the ability to grow the economy. The average citizen didn’t understand much of what was being done. We knew that something had to be done and it had to be done quickly. I believe that the biggest challenge that the President faced was to create enough of a stimulus to help with the recession, but not be so big enough that it would increase the already huge U.S. Debt. From what I have read, the plan was blamed for...
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...different countries and interviews with related parties. Episode One "The Battle of Ideas," gives an overview of the battle between two major competing ideas about the world economy over the course of last century. On the one hand, the English economist Keynes believes in the ‘planned economy’ and advocates the government intervention to mitigate the risk during economic recession or depression; On the other hand, the Australian economist Hayek favors the free market mechanism and believes in minimum government intervention as market will eventually take care of itself and the prices system is at the heart of what makes a functioning economy work. The episode tracks the root of these ideas and explains how the world moved toward the government controlled economy during the 20th century in a chronological order summarized as below. The Russian Revolution in 1917 marked the beginning of communism economy, in which government is very important to allocate resources and goods. During the great depression of 1930, the Keynes’ theory began to dominate. According to Keynes, the solution to the depression was for the government to spend more money to restore the full employment. By late 1940s, ‘socialism was on the march and free market was on the retreat’ all over the world. The Keynes’ economic theory dominated for decades until...
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...Reelection With the American economy in such dire shape, re-election may seem unlikely for President Obama, but unlikely does not mean impossible, if Franklin D. Roosevelt did it, then maybe Obama can too. Roosevelt held some strong cards, not all of which Obama enjoys: First, his party commanded large majorities in both houses of Congress throughout his first term. Tuesday's (Nov 2) elections, which delivered the House to the Republicans, have made matters worse for Obama. For the rest of his term, he will find himself in a far different position than the first-term Roosevelt: He will be in opposition to Congress, rather than in charge of it. Second, Roosevelt had good timing. He entered the presidency a full three years into the worst economic disaster the United States had ever faced, by which time the system was so clearly broken that Americans gave him carte blanche. Moreover, the Depression was deep enough when he took office that even by 1936, voters still blamed Herbert Hoover and the Republicans. And crucially, the economy had begun to recover by 1936, if slowly. Obama's timing has been less fortunate. He rode the financial crisis to victory, but he inherited the recession that came with it. Because the recession deepened after his election, he had much greater difficulty pinning the blame on his predecessor than Roosevelt did. And while Obama succeeded in keeping the economy from sliding into a depressive abyss, he got little credit, an injustice...
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...When Barack Obama stood before a cheering crowd in his home state Illinois and announced his candidacy, no believed that this guy had any chance of winning the nomination. Majority of Americans did not believe that the country was actually ready for an African American president with a promise of changing the course of politics in Washington. The son of a white American mother and a black Kenyan father, Obama grew up in Hawaii. Leaving the state to attend college, he earned degrees from Columbia University and Harvard Law School. Obama's father left the family when Obama was two and, after further studies at Harvard University, returned to Kenya, where he died in an automobile accident nineteen years later. After his parents divorced, Obama's mother married another foreign student at the University of Hawaii, Lolo Soetoro of Indonesia. From age six through ten, Obama lived with his mother and stepfather in Indonesia, where he attended Catholic and Muslim schools. "I was raised as an Indonesian child and a Hawaiian child and as a black child and as a white child," Obama later recalled. "And so what I benefited from is a multiplicity of cultures that all fed me."Concerned for his education, Obama's mother sent him back to Hawaii to live with her parents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, and to attend Hawaii's prestigious Punahou School from fifth grade through graduation from high school. While Obama was in school, she divorced Soetoro, returned to Hawaii...
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...Theory and Problems of Principles of Economics, crowding out is defined as “when a fiscal stimulus pushes up the rate of interest, which in turn results in a lower level of investment spending (Salvatore and Diulio, 1996).” Recent economic turmoil has brought the concept of crowding out into focus as the government tries to stabilize this crisis by offering stimulus packages to encourage consumer spending as well as help prevent larger companies from failing. The heart of the issue of crowding out is control of loanable funds. When there is overabundance of loanable funds, interest rates are normally low. This relates to the concept of supply and demand where the supply is abundant and the demand is seemingly low. When the government demands these loanable funds, the supply of loanable funds is directly impacted sometimes driving interest rates up. Alvin H. Hanson writes, “according to the loanable-fund theory, the rate of interest is determined by the intersection of the demand-schedule for loanable funds with the supply-schedule (Hanson, 1951).” (See chart below) In recent years, our country has faced a significant economic down turn resulting in “the deepest recession in the United States since the Great Depression (Reuss, 2009).” As a result, President Barack Obama proposed significant government spending to stimulate the economy and create jobs while cutting taxes. This stimulus plan must be funded by some means, and ultimate restricts funding available...
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...The day Barack Obama took over the oval office, the entire nation was thrilled to see someone with much better judgment, charisma and let alone intelligence to operate the nation during the country’s worst economy recession since the Great Depression. When the Obama Administration stepped into the office, many believed that the priority for this administration is to turn the country around from this horrific recession that the entire world was facing at the time. Today, I would like to discuss Obama Administration’s policies that are affecting the ability for entrepreneurs to start, operate and make successful a business. First of all, entrepreneur is an integral element of the United States’ economy. Most entrepreneurs are small businesses, and small businesses are extremely important to the country. Small businesses create a tremendous amount of job opportunities which has given plethora of people a chance to achieve financial stability. Small businesses are also essential elements for the country’s revenue, out of all the companies listed in Fortune 500, a great portion of those companies started by entrepreneurs who had abysmal amounts of asset but great visions. In regards to Obama Administration’s policies on small businesses, it seems that President Obama also believes that small businesses are exceptionally vital to the nation’s well being as he stated in a statement that “one of the biggest drivers of employment that we have”. In order to help the entrepreneurs as well...
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...POTUS" Introduction Barrack Obama became the 44th President of the United States of America on January 20th, 2009. He is the first African American to take office and with his presidency he promised to make changes to America that would liberate the American people from crisis into a bright new beginning. In his Inauguration speech, he claimed to mend the financial crisis by stimulating jobs and laying a “new foundation for growth” (Naughton, “Inauguration speech”). He promised to rebuild the Nation’s foundations such as roads, bridges, electric grids, and digital lines, to revive the prosperity and importance of science, to increase the care and lower the cost of health care, to mend the threat of global warming, to enact peace with Afghanistan, to withdraw from Iraq, and to transform the educational system to meet the conditions of a new era (Naughton, “Inauguration speech”). Throughout his first year as president Obama has enacted many policies and regulations such as the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and Health Care Bill. However, has Obama stayed true to his original promises stated throughout his campaigns, in his Inauguration speech, as well as his first State of Union speech. Has Obamba’s first year been a success or a failure? This essay will explore the history of Obama’s ascend to presidency, his success and failures, and an overall evaluation of Obama’s first year in office. The Rise of Barrack Obama Obama was born on August 4, 1961...
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...Geithner & Bernanke Amid the Global Financial Crisis 1. Fiscal policy: Given the breadth and depth of this recession, it was clear that the Treasury and the entire Obama administration had to take bold actions. In fact, right at the beginning, they were committed to a fiscal stimulus policy package which would be “substantial” enough to pull the economy out of the recession. The final stimulus package signed into law in 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, was totaled $787 billion including about one-third tax cuts and one-third aid for states and the unemployed. Of the rest, labor health and education investment got 8%, and infrastructure investment got about 7%. It also included a large amount of government money to bail out the automobile industry. (Frank, 2009) In addition, the U.S. government initiated the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) which was signed by Congress in 2008. This $700 billion program was first designed to free banks and other financial firms of the most toxic securities on their books by purchasing them in auctions. As the financial crisis deepened quickly, the Treasury changed the plan and used the TARP funds to directly recapitalize banks and financial institutions. For example, the Treasury injected $40 billion into AIG and about $125 billion to 8 large banks such as Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and etc. (Frank, 2009) Monetary Policy: There are three basic tools for Fed to use -open market operations, discount...
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...Identify a period in history when any government in the world applied Keynesian economic methods in trying to stimulate their economy. (Do not use the Great Depression as an example). Address the following: 1. Identify and describe the Keynesian actions. Keynesian economics is centered around the premise that governments should play an active role in promoting economic policy and regulating the private sector. Increased government spending and deficits will increase demand in the economy for more production, and that producers will increase supply to meet that demand, hiring more workers and reducing unemployment in the process. President Obama used a stimulus package of nearly $ 1 trillion using the rationale that it would cause the unemployment rate in America to drop to 5.8% and never exceed 8%. As of May of this year, the unemployment rate is at 8.2% and barely moving. The rate has exceeded 8% for 41 straight months as of May. Prior to the recession of 2008 unemployment had not measured over 8% in America since Dec. 1983. Not included in the 8.2% quoted unemployment rate is the estimated 7.2 million people who have given up looking for work or the 8.2 million underemployed workers (part time because they cannot find a full time job). If these two factors were included in the unemployment, it would be 22.8%. Unemployment rate: 8.2% Unemployed + underemployed: 14.9% Unemployed + underemployed + long-term discouraged workers: 22.8% In 2011, the economy...
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...Welfare The welfare of the people in America is put in the hands of the political leaders and public administrators of the government. These political leaders and public administrators are put into office to facilitate bills and propose solutions that will be in the best interest of the public’s welfare. When the topic of welfare is discussed the first though that comes to mind, is giving poor and needy people money to help them get out of a financial bind and temporary unemployment. While this is a true statement, the welfare of all citizens is a concern dealt with by our government. The welfare of the middle and upper class is not as prevalent because the fact that people receive financial support for free overshadows the fact that there are other policies to assist all people in America. There are several preconceived notions about the welfare program in America that leave the subject open for discussion. If one were to look at the various blogs on the subject of Welfare, the understanding of the general public will be determined. Many people argue that African Americans utilize the welfare program more than any other race. They assume that all people on welfare are scamming the government for free housing and free money for groceries. The majority believe that tax payers are losing out on this program because they are supporting the poverty stricken in our country with tax dollars that they do not have to pay. Welfare is felt to be a reason that the government raises taxes...
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...government spending, and, as a result, why Keynes would not support the American government in their spending endeavors, despite using his theory as their justification. I will be critiquing the application of Keynes’ theory from the Austrian, specifically the works of Friedrich A. Hayek, and Monetarist perspectives, supported by arguments given by Milton Friedman. Section 1: Keynes’ Theory on Government Spending John Maynard Keynes published his famous work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, in 1936, during the Great Depression. Economies all over the world were suffering severely from the Great Depression, and there was little hope of economic recovery in the near future. Keynes agreed with the classical economist’s notion that the economy would correct itself in the long run, but was famously quoted, “In the long run we will all be dead,” which perfectly reflects people’s growing doubt in their economies during the Great Depression. Motivated by this belief Keynes, a British economist, challenged Classical economic thought, which was the mainstream economic theory at the time, “…[C]lassical economics offered...
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