Wiki on the modern day "Great Recession"
I know I discourage use of Wikipedia as a bibliographic source, but remember how I have stated, it is a good place to start. So... see the source above, lots of charts, short explanations of what is generally believed to be the closest our country has come to the Great Depression we are now studying. Your assignment is to comment on this post, and by Monday post an article you have found that compares the two economic time periods. You should paste the URL, and have not less than a 1 paragraph summary of your article in your post. By Wednesday (the day after the test), I also want you to have reacted to one other person's post.
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ReplyDeleteI remember that one of the reasons for the Great Depression was the unequal distribution of wealth. That may have been one of the causes of the recent recession. Back in 1928, the top 1% made 23.9% of the income. In 2007 that number is close to what it was in 1928: 23.5% One reason why an unequal distribution of wealth causes economic troubles is that the Middle class will have less. Since the middle class has less, they had to use methods like buying on credit years ago, and since they made payments they had less to spend, so they would buy less, decreasing demand, causing an imbalance of supply and demand. The company would lose money and stocks would decrease in price, investors would lose money, and the economy would quickly fall apart.
ReplyDeleteJosh Kinyon, I feel this is completly true in relation to similarities of both the Depression and Recession. Due to these snowball effects of middle class uneqal distribution, people became more frugal as you said, resulting in even worse economic troubles as you have established. The lack of buying initially helped result in the overall downfall as you have discribed including loss of money in businesses and corrporations. What an awful cycle!
DeleteJust as Melissa said, I would have to say that this is a great description you provided between the two time periods and the statistic that related the top 1% from then to now is simply astounding. I also must add one of my own points/questions; This has happened twice before, what prevents it from happening again and again? It is a question about history which the answer to always seems to elude me. Also agreeing with Melissa, that is an awful cycle that results in an overall economic downfall.
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ReplyDeletehttp://money.cnn.com/news/storysupplement/economy/recession_depression/
ReplyDeleteSummary:
I found striking differences between the Great Depression and the Great Recession. The first is the number of banks that closed. In the Great Depression about half of all banks closed, while today only 0.6% closed. When we look at the stock market, it decreased by about half in the Great Recession but almost 90% in the Great Depression. Both saw economic decline, but in the Great Depression, it was 26.5% compared to 3.3 % in the Great Recession. When look at unemployment, more than 3 times as many people were jobless during the Great Depression. Prices dipped in the Great Depression, while they increased slightly in the Great Recession.
Looking at the reactions to each, although the Great Depression was worse, more money was put into stopping the Great Recession. The ratio of GDP spent on relief was much less in the Great Depression. The programs of the Great Depression included work programs, Social Security, and relief programs for banks. In the Great Recession, many banks were bailed out, and Social Security still exists. The work programs are the unique part of the Great Depression as far as relief. The Great Depression saw the implementation of the more taxes on the rich, and also new workplace and banking reforms, that prevented future economic downturns. Overall, when we look at all the affects, the Great Depression was much worse, as we can see from the unemployment and stock differences, and that we see many unique programs were started in the Great Depression, while we see a smaller Great Recession, where the relief is more centered towards banks and organizations, as shown by the massive bailout of AIG. Ultimately, there are many similarities, but even more differences between the Great Depression and the Great Recession.
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DeleteFrom skimming the Wiki link, I learned that the Great Depression and the current crisis can be compared and contrasted in many ways. The main difference between the two is that while the Stock Market really dropped in the Recession, The Recession was not caused by a stock market crisis like the Great Depression. I am interested to find an article of my own that will elaborate on comparisons of the two.
ReplyDeleteBanking failures and the collapse of the stock market are two out of many causes of the Great Recession we are currently living in. These aspects of the economy also contributed to the Great Depression in the 1930s. Both of these cause the nation's economy to take major downfall. In both the Great Recession and the Great Depression, companies were decreasing the number of employees they had working. This causes a loss of income and the inability for unemployed people to pay off loans and debt. Because they cannot pay these off, homes were being forced into foreclosure and banks were failing. A decrease in consumer spending was a cause of the Great Depression. I believe that this is also a cause of the Great Recession. Most Americans do not have much money to waste, so they are trying to distinguish their needs from their wants. After the Great Depression, many relief, recovery, and reform programs were created to help save the economy. To get out of the Recession, I think we need to restore some of these programs or create totally new ones that would save the economy once again.
ReplyDeleteI agree that we are in need of reforming programs in order to bring back a settle economy, but it had been increasingly hard to pass any reforms because not everyone in the Federal Government approves of this. Also, the Recession may seem bad but it could definetly be worse if not for the of the programs implimented by the government while the country was in the Great Depression. For instance prices of goods has not gone significatnly down and our stock market did not completely crash. And not many banks have failed due to the FDIC and their insurance in banks.
Deletehttp://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past/comparing-the-great-depression-to-the-great-recession/
ReplyDeleteComparing the Great Depression to the Great Recession
The author of this article points out that one of main causes of each crisis can be blamed on the federal governement. The author blames a sharp raise in interest amounts, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and Hoover's signing of a large tax increase for the start of the Great Depression. For the Current Recession, the author details that the responsibilty falls upon the push for home ownership even upon those who could not handle the responsibility and would not be able to pay off their loans, as well as the government bailing out large corporations and wasting money.
Despite economic troubles in these times, both the Great Depression and the Great Recession did not result in cut backs from presidents in these eras, as each president of these time periods overspent the nations money, desperately trying to escape from the economic crisis of their time, first the Great Depression, and to the latter the Great Recession. In both cases, the overspending backfired. During the Great Depression, unemployment reached about 25%, while today the number of American's unemployed has balooned to even over 10% at one point.
Similarly, both contained a spike in taxes. FDR income taxes greatly. Obama has raised taxes on some rather abstract things, such as cigarettes.
The final comparison the author makes is the scapegoats both presidents turned to. Wall Street bankers and American businessmen were the targets of FDR, while Obama made his targets almost the exact same people.
Much in contrast to Josh's article, this article stressed the similarities of the two American times of economic crisis. Hopefully we will get out of this Recession, with less damage done than that of the Great Depression.
While reading the wiki-link, I found it interesting how the Great Recession started; unlike the Great Depression, it started with the burst of the housing bubble. I also noticed how loans were one of the causes for both events, and easily obtained credit also. It seems like there are many similarities between the starts of the Great Depression and Great Recession.
ReplyDeletehttp://mbcalyn.com/2011/10/07/comparing-the-great-depression-to-the-great-recession-the-freeman-ideas-on-liberty/
ReplyDeleteThe article I chose used several key points to compare the Great Recession to the Gret Depression.
Both Obama and FDR, as the article states, tried to use massive federal spending to help their crisis. This massive spending, in both cases, did not end up working; the spending had no effect on the goal of lowering unemployment, and budget increases happened.
The article also shows that both Obama and FDR tried to use tax increases to solve the nation's problems. While FDR's increases were mainly rediculously high income taxes, Obama's proposed taxes are on random items, such as soft drinks.
The article's final comparison was that both FDR and Obama tried to blame the economy's problems on other people; in other words, both presidents chose to use scapegoats. Both presidents blamed the Wall Street bankers and other business leaders. The presidents also thought that if they showed resentment towards certain groups of Americans, they could gain the support of others.
Olivia, I completely agree with all of these similarities. I also find it very interesting how both President Obama and FDR felt massive federal spending would do the trick of solving our economic troubles. As well as both these Presidents feeling putting the blame on others would help the situation. It seems to me these Presidents are a little too similar in their ideals, and I find it wise if President Obama took a step back to see all of these links. What do you think, Olivia?
DeleteOlivia, I really enjoy this website because of how it compares the presidents and their reactions to the situations. I thought that that it is quite interesting that there are not more comparisons like this because of how similar the presidents reacted. It is very odd that they thought that they should spend more money in order to get America out of its financial rut. The prestidents' opinions were so identical that it is facinating to read about. The article really captures how history repeats itself all of the time.
DeleteI found the wiki link to be very interesting. It showed both the simililarities and differences between the Great Depression and the current recession.The major difference I noticed was that the Great Depression started mainly due to a stock market crash and our recession was started in part due to problems in the housing market. The website shows how history does tend to repeat itself.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading the wiki link, I discovered multiple similarities, as well as differences, in regards to the Great Depression and current recession. One of the lead causes of the Great Depression mainly focused on the stock market crash. Whereas, the current recession was started partly due to housing market troubles. Also, I noticed similarities when I discovered both topics had loan issues and unemployment difficulties as well. Overall, this article helped me realize how different, yet similar both the recession and the Great Depression are.
ReplyDeleteAfter skimming the wikipedia site, I discovered numerous similarities and difference between the Great Depression, and today's recession. A similarity I found was that both the Great Depression, and Ression resulted in foreclosures, loan problems, and overall unemployment issues, that usually results from any financial crisis. Diffrences that I concluded were that the Depression was a result of mainly the stock market crash, while the rescession was a result of mainly house market difficulties. Both financial problems effected American's every where, and severly hurt America's economy.
ReplyDeleteIn reading this wikipedia article, I found that there were many similarites between the Great Depression and the current reseccion we are living in today. Similarities not only on the way they began, but also the results. Many people today are losing their homes and are being evicted just like during the Great Depression. The number of people having to live on the streets, though, is not as high due to government assistance and shelters that were not available in the 1930's-40's. The similarities of how these to era's began are also evident. Between the stock market downturns, bank failures, and bailouts, it's easy to see that history repeats itself.
ReplyDeleteI also noticed those similarities, and I saw how much more dire our situation could be and have been if not for the securites created as results of the great depresion. I am glad to see the benefits of lessons learned, and I wonder what the future will bring in regard to our current economic woes.
DeleteYou make a lot of really good points on the similarities and differences between the two and I liked how you ended the paragraph by talking about the three major downfalls. I liked how you shared the people living on the streets but maybe you could've included the numbers if they were on there but otherwise, I thought you did a good job explaining it and talked about many of the main points.
DeleteAfter reading this article, I found out a lot about the Great Depression and the Recession. Although there were some differences, there were many similarities that I saw that made a huge impact on both of these situations. One of the major differences I saw was how each of these downfalls started. Unlike the Great Depression, which started out because the Stock Market crashed, the Recession started because of the bursting of the US Housing Bubble. However the Stock Market still played a huge role in the downfall of both the Great Depression and the Recession. Some similarities to the two were that both fallouts had to do with the Bank failures, stock market, and the collapse of many of the large businesses. Many things are different and many things are similar about the Great Depression and the Recession and there was just a few that i recognized.
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point in the fact that the major difference between these crises is what started them. It is very true that the stock market played a major role in both these situations. You poin out many key similarities incluing bank failures, stock market, the collapse of businesses.
DeleteYou're exactly right about the similarities in the two time periods. Things like the stock market made a huge negative impat in both the recession and depression. This probably made the great recession a scary thing for American citizens because of it's potential to turn into a ful blown depression.
Deletehttp://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past/comparing-the-great-depression-to-the-great-recession/
ReplyDeleteThe article I chose to write about compares the Great Depression and our current Recession by showing the similarities of how they both started and what our presidents did to try to solve these economic crisis's.
The author of this article beleives that the main cause of the Great Depression was the raising of interest rates by the federal reserve in 1929. He also beleives that the Smoot-Harley Tariff and tax increases in 1932 contributed as well.
The beggining of our current Recession is thought to have started in the 1990's, when the government started pushing home ownership, even for those who were not financially able. This caused loans from the banks that could not be paid of, thus forcing the government to assist banks to keep them from closing.
The author also states the similarites in how president Obama and president Roosevelt responded to the problems. Both presidents beleived that massive spending would help dig the country out of their economic slump. President Roosevelt with the Agricultural Adjusent Act and President Obama with the 787 billion dollar stimulus package and the "jobs bill". Both of these "solutions" were rash and did not directly solve their problems.
Both of these presidents show great examples that spending money is not always the solution.
I agree with most of what you had to say, but i think you could have done a better job comparing and contrasting the two. You showed the similarities of the presidents at the end, which i agree with, but i think you could have been more speceific on other parts of the problem.
DeleteGood article Josh, I thought there were many good comparisons between the depression and the recession. I liked the paragraph that compared how Obama and Roosevelt reacted to each different financial crisis. However I think the article you chose was a little bit too opinionated and maybe you should take an article that shared both sides of each topic. Also, maybe you could've been a little more specific about some of the events, give some more details on them. I like the opening paragraph a lot, it gives us a good understanding of what the article is about. Overall, good article.
Deletehttp://www.informedtrades.com/237417-comparing-great-depression-crisis-2008-a.html
ReplyDeleteThis website was very helpful in helping me learn more about some of the similarities and differences between the Great Depression and the Recession.
Some of the similarities that it talked about were how before the Great Depression, there was the Roarin' 20s, and how before the Recession, there was the Greenspan NASDAQ and housing bubbles. Another similarity that it talked about were how both were marked by government interventionalist policies to try to stop the downfall of the asset prices. Both of theses similarities however didn't seem to be a good thing.
Some of the differences were that America was not in as much debt in the Great Depression as they are now in the Recession. Spending and debt were way lower in the Great Depression than they are now in the Recession. Another difference was that in the Recession, a lot of America's debt it owned largely by foreignors unlike the Great Depression. This can help the US and it can hurt them too.
This was a good website that also had a conclusion to summarize about the topic and i would recommend it to people wanting to learn more about this topic.
I think you found a relevant website with many good points. I like the comparison between the pre economic crisis time period between the Depression and the Recession. That made a very interesting point. I also like how you pointed out that in the Great Recesssion we are much more in debt in the Great dpresssion. It shows that we are sort of spending our money carelesssly during this time. It shows that we were much more careful with out money many years ago, and now we are sort of spending it away carelessly.
Deletehttp://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past/comparing-the-great-depression-to-the-great-recession
ReplyDeleteWithin the article comparing and contrasting the Great Depression and today's Recession, there were many valid points referring to the comparissons of each. Differences of each also resulted into the crisis of America's economy as well as the similarities. Some of which included the causes of the crises, intial downfall, the results of the crashes,and how our presidents reacted to these results.
In the Great depression, much of the crisis was due to the stock market crash resulting in further problems and dilemas that overall created the depression. In the article, increases in intrest rates, the smoot-hawley tariff, and higher taxes were just a few of the causes of the Great Depression as well as the stock market crash. For the Recession, similarities are found by the increase in intrest rates today as well. Faults in the housing market and its loans were one of the main causes for America's Recession also. These causes were mainly thought to be the result of the federal government and there participation in these actions.Due to these causes the economy has taken a turn for the worse in a similar reflection to the Depression.
After these crises occured results of Depression and now the Recession had President's Roosevelt and Obama taking similar responses in actions to these problems and their solutions. When the Depression hit, Roosevelt took immediate action, but only increased payments in taxes and overall had over spent the nation's money on top of the positivie solution's he had made. In relation, Obama also increased and overspent money during the caos. Due to this, both the Depression and Recession resulted in hudge unemployment rates following these spendings by the Presidents. Although these increases in payments were ment to end the conflicts in the economy, only problems arised. Also, both Obama and Roosevelt blamed scapegoats such as Banks and Coorporations on the fall in the economy, not owning up to any faults, which overall probalbly hurt the economy even more due to this denial.
Both conflicts in the economy and decisions by the President's helped result in economic crisis both in the Great Depression, and today in the Recession. Many comparisons and differences can be made in relation to both the Great Depression and the Recession.
Although much of your information is true, I think some of the statements wer written by a biased author. Yes, Roosevelt and Obama both overspent and added to our nation's debt, but these were not the sole contributors to unemployment. A large portion of the unemployment problems happened before the government even stepped in. The reason works programs were created was because the economic crisis had already begun.And based the material in the last chapter, we can tell that corporations and banks are not innocent, but helped cause both the Great Depression and the Great Recession.
DeleteOn the bright side, you did include some valid information about both time
periods. I like the way you set up your summary and based on the length I can tell you really spent time reading and processing the information.
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past/comparing-the-great-depression-to-the-great-recession /
ReplyDeleteI too, used the link above to discover more similarites and differences of the Great Depression and the current Great Recession. Although there are many differences, I discovered multiple similarities that intrigued me through this article.
There were multiple similarities these two topics demonstrate, the first being the reason behind the cause. The author of this article points his finger at the federal government, saying they were the main cause of both topics. For the Great Depression, the Federal Reserve increased interest rates, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff smothered trade and damaged exports throughout the time period, and a large tax increase all directly linked to the federal government helped America's economy slump into a downfall. Through the Great Recession's start, the federal government pushed housing, even on those who were uncreditworthy, starting our plumit to economic downfall, as well.
With similarities in causes, also conclude in links between massive federal spending, spending fails, tax rates raised, and scapegoat blame to both the Great Depression and the Great Recession. Although another evident and very consistant link is one with both FDR and Obama supporting multiple programs, Tariffs, and Acts, which resulted in these Presidents consistantly trying to put money into the economy. The hope behind this tactic, was that it would result in the end of economic deconstruction towards America.
Although there are many more similarities, hopfully this glimpse of this insightful article shows how both the Great Depression and the undergoing Great Recession are connected.
The Wikipedia article explains that the Great Recession was quite similar to the Great Depression, yet there are some differences between the two. Both situations had a financial aspect where there was a loss of financial institutions and many jobs. All of the financial issues that started and resulted of these situations also resulted in the loss of homes and a stock market crash. A difference that was prominent was that the main cause of the Great Depression was the stock market crash, but the main cause of the Recession was the burst of the housing bubble. In both cases, many Americans were fractured in one way or another by these aweful economic issues.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this article i noticed many similaties and differences from how they started, the outcome, and what there doing to try and fix it. The similarities i noticed were the starters and how banks and economy were going down. I also noticd how many homes and banks are closing and being evicted. Some differences were the Big starts like the stock market crash and the house marketing.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past/comparing-the-great-depression-to-the-great-recession/
ReplyDeleteThis article demostrates the differences and similarities between the Great Depression and the Great Recession. It begins by comparing what caused both of these unfortunate events. It points out that both issues can be traced back to mistakes made by the federal government. The main cause of the Great Depression, it says, is a rais in interest rates an d laws that raised tariffs. It also states that the Depression was caused in part by the push for homeownership even to those uncreditworthy. In both cases the presidents responded with massive federal spending. And neither were very successful and unemployment rates were still very high. The article also explains how tax rates were raised both then and now. The government has many people that were unhappy. They had been rather unsuccessful in many of their endevors nd started looking for someone to blame. These scapegoats were Wall Street Bankers and various corporate leaders. Similarities such as these demonstrate that history does indeed repeat itself and hopefully we can learn from our mistakes and fix this recession.
http://nrmarketwatch.com/2011/02/16/great-comparison-great-recession-great-depression/
ReplyDeleteThis link compares the Great Depression and the Great Recession by GDP, or gross domestic product. Gross domestic product represents the total dollar value in goods and services in a particular time period. This site does not only show the GDP, it shows the GDP through an American's eyes that lived during that time. The website uses unemployment, homeownership, living arangements, and more to compare the two time periods. In the end, it summarizes the situations with the difference between the GDPs at the two different times. It shows that the Great Recession was much less severe than the Great Depression in these aspects.
Megan, this was a cool website you chose. I liked the fact that it used equations and other forms of math to figure out the severity of the two events. I also enjoyed how it showed the decreases/increases, in percents, of a variety of different categories. This website was full of things I did not know about the Great Depression and the Great Recession.
DeleteReading the Wiki article brought to my attention that the main reason for sharp economic declines have been borrowing un-backed funds, investing those funds, and then going back for more. For a while the apparent effect is very positive as the "bubble" expands, but then everyone seems to notice that this should not work, and then, of course, it ceases to work. Items that in which investments had been made failed, and because the investments were of loans, lender, recipient, and any other involved parites were sucked nto a vicious cycle of decline.
ReplyDeleteAfter reviewing the Wikipedia article, I notice a number of similarities between the Great Depression and the Global Financial Crisis. In both instances, the stock market declined drastically. Banks were lost and unemployment hit incredible highs. However, the reaons for both economic downfalls vary. The obvious cause of the Great Depression was an unexpected crash of the stock market, while the GFC was started after the price of real estate plunged. Either way, both extraordinary periods of financial crisis share similar results, with our overall economy state going down in history as two terrible times in our country.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your statements. I like the fact that you pointed out that both time periods had a major decline in the stock market even though the Great Recession (or GFC) was not mainly caused by this downfall. I find it interesting that you mentioned that this recession will someday be in the textbooks. Although I agree, I do not think that this recession is nearly as consequential as the Great Depression was.
Deletehttp://contraryinvesting.com/great-depression/comparing-the-current-recessiondepression-with-the-great-depression-via-benjamin-roths-diary/
ReplyDeleteThis article goes about comparing not the two economic periods' causes, but what one could and shoud have done in response to them. Using Benjain Roth's insight as a guide, the author reinforces that "cash is king" in any economic downturn, and that one of the best strategies to survive and even derive benefit from the situation is to liquidate all invesments ass soon as the market begins to turn sour. The article states that altough one might take losses doing this, one will have the cash neccessary to re-purchase the former holdings at a fraction of their selling value, leading to prosperity and economic security.
oops, I didnt notice that typo in the 5th line. My apologies.
DeleteAfter reading the wiki article, I noted some similarities an differences in the Great Depression and the Great Recession. One similarity was the durastic fall in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Loans and poor credit also contributed to both events. The major difference was the burst in the housing bubble, which was the cause of the Great Recession. The main cause of the Great Depression was the crash of the stock market. These are a few of the noted similarites and differences.
ReplyDeleteThe big difference I saw after skimming the article was what caused the market crashes. The Great Depression was a stock market crash, while the Great Recession was more of the housing market. The striking similarity I saw though was the trend between the prices of the Dow Jones in both time periods. In October 2007, Dow Jones saw its highest price ever with over 14,000 points. By March 2009, it had dropped over 50 percent; much similar to the Great Depression where in the same time period Dow Jones dropped over 54.7 percent. As the U.S. economy is the biggest in the world, it makes sense that the houseing market would effect the stock market, and vise versa.
DeleteAs I was reading over the article on wikipedia, it was interesting to see that the buying of homes was the main cause of the great recession. The one thing that really stood out to me though was that, in the Great Depression, the people could not pay back the stockbrokers for the money they were loaned to buy stocks. But in the Recession people didn't have the money to pay back the banks for the loans they got to buy their houses. They couldn't pay them back because Adjustable Rate Mortgages began to rise. ARM's are a mortgage loan with an interest rate that rises or falls based on the cost to the lender of borrowing on the credit markets. And when banks gave out more loans for homes, housing prices started to rise, causing a financial crisis.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past/comparing-the-great-depression-to-the-great-recession/
ReplyDeleteThe article that I found compares and contrasts the Great Recession and the Great Depression. The article states that the main cause of both the Recession and Depression were due to actions of the federal government. FDR and Obama are blamed for massive spending. The increase spending, that was meant to help the economy, failed and led to a rise in unemployment. During the Recession and Depression, tax rates were raised. The final comparison was made when the author said that both FDR and Obama were looking for scapegoats when their spending did not help the economy recover. After reading the article, I have a better understanding of the similarities and differences in the Great Recession and the Great Depression.
http://www.thegreatdepressioncauses.com/then-and-now.html
ReplyDeleteThe website that I found dicussed the key causes of the Great Depression and explained their relation to the modern-day recession. Speculation, it says, contributed to both economic downfalls: the speculation of stocks in 1929 versus the cost of housing being speculated throughout the early 21st century. Buying stock on margin was popular just before the Great Depression. A similar idea was brought about in today's time, but people bought homes they could not afford instead of portions of a company. High rates of unemployment and the failure of banks, more during the Great Depression, accompanied both events. However, there are a noteable number of differences between the depression and recession. The article describes a few. First we have the timely response that occurred in 2008 when the economy tanked. We had obviously learned from our mistakes, seeing as though it took nearly four years to get the country's feet back on the ground after the Depression. When the financial crisis began just a few years ago, the government immediately signed bailout checks and other agreements to prevent another depression. The Dust Bowl also played a major role in 1929's depression, but America saw no such serious natural disaster. This website gives detailed information describing both periods of economic turmoil. Though similiarities are present, America has learned from the Great Depression. The country as a whole is better able to recover from financial messes.
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ReplyDeletehttp://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past/comparing-the-great-depression-to-the-great-recession/
ReplyDeleteThis article says that the blame for the two economic problems lie within the hands of the federal government. Big spending was one of the big problems that caused the economic crisis's. Hoover tried to fix the economy completely by spending big money on public works, federal welfare, and federal farm programs. This got the US in an even deeper hole because of the programs little sucess. But FDR thought that these programs could actually help the economy if more money was spent on these organizations. It worked, even though it caused more debt for a little while, the programs success helped get the US economy back on their feet. Obama had the same idea to fix the struggling economy, spend more money. He spent 787 billion tax dollars that went to different cities and voting groups all over the country. He also gave a lot of money to key congressional districts in the US. Obama also caused more debt by passing a universal health coverage bill. Obama is hoping to gain support of americans in his next campaign for president and to help the US out financially. This article was very descriptive on how the two presidents, Obama and FDR, tried to fix their economies. It also gave facts about unemployment rates, GD 21% and GR just below 10%, and
this is a continuation. how more debt occured in the economies before they got better.
DeleteAfter reading the wii article, ive noticed that the resession and the great depression had a few similaritys. 1 similarity that i found is people were taking out bank loans to buy houses, but then people wouldnt be able to pay back the banks. then the banks would foreclose there property. this is like how in the great depression, people would take out bank loans to buy stocks and ten they wouldnt be able to pay back the backs because they would lose there money on stocks. another similarity between the two was in both situations, people had money invested in the stock marcket. when the stocks started going down, people started going in debt.with people in debt, they didnt buy more stocks to bring the prices back up to normall. so then the stocks woul go down further putting even more people into debt and the faster it ended up falling.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that there are few similarities in some of the ways it started, but there are many in other areas. These include the unequal distribution of wealth and bank failures. While the bank failures today were from giving out bad loans and the housing crisis, and now people will be less inclined to take it out now that we have the FDIC. The main problem is in the distribution of wealth. Even though an income tax is in place, partly due to BUsh era tax cuts, the top 1% control a huge amount, similar to the Great Depression. When looking at the effects, I definitely agree with you, because the magnitude was so great.
Deletei completely agree with what your saying, but im not saying that what i said is the only similarities, but just a few. there are lot more differences than similarites though because of how we had responded after the depression. so in his resession, the fact that only .6% of banks closed which was 57, is way different than th depression where 9000+ closed which was about 50% of banks. so its harder to find too many similarities when we've already tried to fix the major problems of the depression.
DeleteI'm not saying you're completely wrong on this, but history should truly be about reflecting, and what I'm saying is that there is so much of a connection between the two. the New Deal programs prevented other economic crisises from being as bad, as the FDIC protects banks from failure through giving people confidence in their deposit. So it may be less of the similarities than the overall connection, but the similarities, as in wealth disturbution and housing problems are still there.
Deletehttp://money.cnn.com/news/storysupplement/economy/recession_depression/
ReplyDeletethis article is a chart that compares the Great Depresion and the great resesion. its showing how much worse the great depression was compared to the great ressesion. 1 fact that really stod out to me was the first one stated, in the great depression 9096 banks closed, thats 50 %. in the great ressesion, only 57 banks ended up closing, which is only .6% of all the banks. another fact that was outstanding was economical decline. in the great depression, there wasa a 26.5% decline. in the great resession, it was only a 3.3 % decline. the great depression was way worse than the great ressesionn.
Both the Great Depression and great recession are both major economic declines that have hit the world in the last 100 years. However the great recession has a far smaller unemployment rate, 30%-10%. Also today with our policies those hit hard can get beneifits pending surcumstances.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that the unemployment rates were much lower in the Great Recession than they were in the Great Depression. I like that you pointed out how much lower the unemployment rate was, it made a very good point. I also like how you stated that with all of the new policies being enforced, it will help prevent the world from being in such a crisis.
Deletehttp://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past/comparing-the-great-depression-to-the-great-recession/
ReplyDeleteThis article shows many similarities between the Great Depression and the Great recession. One of which is people spending money that they don't have. People during the Great Depression would be spending bank's "imaginary" money, and when the market crashed they lost all of their money. In the recession people are buying house, cars, and other expensive things, with loans from a bank, even if they have bad credit. Another similarity is the massive government spending. Both during the Great Depression and Great Recession the government has spent a lot of money trying to correct the problem. Roosevelt and Obama have both tried to balance the federal budget, but have ended up spending massive amounts of money, bringing us farther into debt. Lastly in both times the government has raised income taxes, and other taxes. This would destroy entrepreneurship because they would have to give other half of the money that they have earned.
I completely agree with the "imaginary money" causing the economic downfall. when people had to pay, the money wasnt there, causing even more debt for americans.
DeleteAs I was reading the article I noticed that one of the main similarities between the Great Depression and th Great Recession is that they were both caused by people being irrresponsible. Many people taking out loans that they couldnt afford was the main contributor to both crashes.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the artical, the main similarities I found between the Great Depression and the Great Recesion is how they started. They were both started by people not spending their money wisely. In the Great Depression people took out loans from stockbrokers and, they were unable to pay them back. Whereas in the Great Recession, people are taking out loans from the banks for house housepayments and, they are unable to pay the banks back. So, both times were started by people spending more money than they actually have.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of similiarities between the Great Recession and the Great Depression. Both were caused due to the irresponsible spending of citizens and the government. They both resulted in huge losses in the stock market and the foreclosure of banks across the nation. In both cases the government was forced to become pro-active in their roles in stimulating the economy.
ReplyDelete-Ryan Berg
The Great Depression and the Great Recession are alike and different in many ways. While, THe Great Depression was far more severe then the Great Recession, they both had similar beginnings with people spending money that, in theory, they didn't have. Both of the crises were fuled by huge amounts of debt in the United States, and in people as well. Easy credit allowed people to apply and recieve loans for things that they could not always pay back. IN the more recent recession people would gets loans for houses and cars and if they were to loose their job and not be able to pay back the loan, the house they bought could be foreclosed on them, leaving them homeless. While in the Great Depression people would take out loans for stocks, being much more risky, when the stock market crashed people were left in huge debt. THis is part of the reason the Great Depression was much more severe then the recession we are in today. Both crisises resulted in huge numbers of jobs lost, and both called for many reforms and policies to put the economy back in place and to decrease U.S. debt.
ReplyDeleteThe late 2000's crisis seemed to have very similar causes from the great depression, but those causes were just in a different form. For example, the inflation in the stock market in the 20's was the same concept as the modern houseing bubble. The bubble, like the stock market, popped and increased the price of homes by 126%. Another cause of the financial crisis that really came back around to contribute to other causes, is that banks begain to give out everything from house to credit card loans far to easily. Starting in the 1980's, intrest on loans decreaesd while the number of loans increased creating a recipe for disaster and debt in all American industries.
ReplyDeletemoney.cnn.com/news/storysupplement/economy/recession_depression/
ReplyDeleteThis site, although it was all facts and no opinionated articles, made both the similarities and differences of the great depression and great resession clear and simple. The two economic declines both had many same or similar problems. Bank failures, unemployent, and stock market problems are all issues that were faced in both time periods. Unemployment specifically is the biggest problem faced today, but even the 8.5% unemployment rate of 2007 isn't even close to the 25% of the depression. That proving the biggest difference between the depressio and resession is the far greater severity of the great depression.
http://money.cnn.com/news/storysupplement/economy/recession_depression/
Deletethis should be the site that works
sorry
After reading this article I can't help but notice how similar our recession now is to the great depression was then. The main thing I noticed was how they were both started. They were both started by banks giving out to many loans on things like stocks and homes and people were not able to pay off their loans. People not being able to pay off their loans decreased their wealth and therefore the economy dropped. So in short the big similarity was that people paid for things with oney that they didn't actually have. The reason that this recession didn't turn into another depresssion was because this time the government knew how to deal with the problem.
ReplyDeleteGood information and explaining it so that i could understand it hood-head!
Deletehttp://www.forbes.com/2009/10/29/depression-recession-gdp-imf-milton-friedman-opinions-columnists-bruce-bartlett.html
ReplyDeleteThe article that I read touched on some different aspects of the Great depression from the Wiki article and some were the same. It first talked about one of the main reasons the economy went down was because there was no money to spend. One of the reasons there was no money to spend was because there was lots of money that was put into banks that had to be closed down, and the governent had no plan for if this happened so lots of people lost all the money that was put into the banks. This article also talked about how capitalism had lots to do with how the depression started and how another one was prevented by anti capitalism during this recession. Part of the problem was that capitalism meant the Government didn't really do much during the beginning of the depression which made the problem get even worse. This was documented above how the Governet had no plan for if the banks closed, that was an exaple of capitalism that caused the depression and made it get worse. But during this recession we used anti capitalism, which meant the government is trying to fix the problem and that has helped prevent this from beginning another Great Depression. People have criticized this but the article document that if the governemtn didn't get involved that we would be in another depression. Another thing that was documented was that people feared that after World War 2 ended that the Great Depression would happen again. But luckily those people were wrong and it never happened again. That is a summary of the article I read.
Both the Great Depression and the Great recession changed the government. They both came from poor decisions by banks. Yet, the Great Depression had more effect on the Stock Market than, the Great Recession did. The Great Recession had more effect on the housing market. This is another connection, loans were given out to people in both times, that couldn't pay the needed ammount. The governement stepped in to both economic downturns, both later than most Americans would have liked. Yet they stepped in in different ways. With the Great Depression FDR made Workers Programs, the Great Recession the government gave the economy stimulus. Both of these ways did help. Overall, these ecnomic situations were very similar and different.
ReplyDeletei beilive that they are a lot more similar than different yes they had a few differeincals but they're both very alike with the goverment stepping in to fix a situation caused by money and trying to bite off more than you can chose
DeleteI think the wiki article did a great job of giving me a basic ideas of the similarities of the two. I think the graphs did a great job of showing what really happened. The Table of Contents made it easy so that i could find what the similarities to the Great Depression are. The main similarity in the article was people not being able to pay off what they had spent their money on.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this article I realized that our recession has many similarities and differences to the Great Depression. Some causes of the recession today are the housing market going down, unemployment rising, bank bailouts, and the decline of the stock market. Even though the great depression wasn't caused by most of these things, it was partially caused by the decline of the stock market. Although they both caused large amounts of financial destress in our country, the Depression did a lot more damage than the recession has so for.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with all that you said. Although the Great Depression and the Great Recession show many similar statistics throughout the time periods, they were not causes of the economic declines. Rather, they are results of the initial crash in both the stock market and the housing market. I also agree with your comment that the Great Recession is not nearly as severe as the Great Depression so far. I think this is because today we know how to handle the situatio better. For example, we have institued a backup plan for if the banks are to fail. We have also instituted Social Security which helps even out the distribution of money.
Deletehttp://www.tnr.com/article/economy/77427/economic-crisis-recession-depression
ReplyDeleteWhat i get from this article is that both were big financial crisis one more than the other. I noticed that they started because of the stock market crash(great depression) and the subprime mortage crisis.I also noticed thaat right before 1929 that automobile production had slowed majorly, the in the 2007 computer processing and ect. had slowed down constribulatley. One thing i noticed tho was that in the recssion another contry had prospered while in the depression no other country prospered.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/29/depression-recession-gdp-imf-milton-friedman-opinions-columnists-bruce-bartlett.html
ReplyDeleteThis article compares the underlying causes of both the Great Depression and the Great Recession. What was incredibly shocking to me was the fact that for decades even economists couldn't figure what caused the depression. Many said that capitalism is like a bubble, it inflates as life gets better and better (1920's) until the bubble pops and everything comes crashing down. They thought it was just the natural process of an economy. Or they blamed it on the fact that industry had simply slowed down, everyone who wanted a car had already bought one. We now know that while both of these were contributing factors, the Depression was much more complicated than that. The article then goes on to explain some of the legistics of both economical hardships. In the Great Depression the physical amount of money decreased sharply or in fact they found that it was never present in the first place. In the Great Recession, exactly the opposite has happened. The amount of money has continued to increase and dollar bills are far from hard to find. In fact, we have too much money flowing and the value of the dollar is what decreased. After this was explained, both economical low points suddenly began to make sense to me. In the Depression, it seemed like every dollar cherished, as prices reached an all time low. In the recession, a dollar suddenly ment almost nothing. Prices inflated, making things like groceries and other necessities incredibly expensive. Both the Great Depression and the Great Recession caused wallets to get tighter and unemployment rates to go up, but they were very unique in how they did it.
I also foud it interesting that they really didn't understand what happened to their economy. Yet, you'd think it wouldn't happen again but it did. Another thing I like about this is how it pointed out the differnece in the view of the physical dollar. The depression prices went down, the recession the prices went through the roof. I'd never thought of that before.
Deletehttp://money.cnn.com/news/storysupplement/economy/recession_depression/
ReplyDeleteThis CNN source compares the Great Dpression and the Great Recession using statistics. It shows that both times have similar contributing factors and casues. For example, unempolyment rates, bank failures, economic decline, and change in prices were all contributing factors to both the Great Depression and Great Recession. The only difference is the Great Depression was much worse. For example, fifty percent of the banks closed between 1930 and 1933, and only 0.6 percent of the banks have closed between 2007 and 2009. Another example is the unemplyment rates. During the Great Recession twenty-five percent of the population was unemployed, and today during th Great Depression only 8.5 percent of the population is unemployed. This is still a great portion of the population, but it is not nearly as large as the Great Depression. In conlusion, the Great Depression and the Great Recession have similar economic decline statistics, but the Great Recssion is not nearly as major as the Great Depression.
Sorry, in lines eight, nine, and ten I accidentally got the Great Depression and the Great Recession mixed up. That should say, "During the Great Depression twenty-five percent of the population was unemployed, and today during the Great Recession only 8.5 percent of the population is unemployed."
DeleteI like how you stated the contrasting statistics between both economic failures. Your examples about the number of banks clsoing and unemployment rates positively support your points that you were making. I am shocked by the percentage of unemployment during the Great Depression because when our country was in the heart of the Recession, the number of unemployed took a major toll on the overall state of people in the U.S. That number was nearly tripled during the Great Depression, so I can hardly imagine how those numbers affected the country as a whole.
DeleteI meant effected, not affected...
Deletehttp://www.investorplace.com/2011/10/recession-depression-ge/ stock market aspect of both economic slumps
ReplyDeletehttp://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/3421 -- good charts on global trade and markets
Both of these websites looked more towards the graphs and numbers comparing global trade and stock markets from then and now. As the crash of the stock market was the biggest factor in the Great Depression, this was not the case in the Great Recession. As the Recession was caused more by the housing market, the world's stock markets and global trade have gone down with the American's. Both economies show similar signs to eachother, with the Recession looking even more grim in some aspect then the Depression did. All in All, the numbers dont lie, and both economic slumps have their similarities and differences.
http://www.thegreatdepressioncauses.com/then-and-now.html
ReplyDeleteSummary:
Looking at this article, I find many similarites and differences between the Great Depression and the Great Recession we are experiencing now. The beginning of the Great Depression was the unbelievable stock market crash in 1929. The main cause of the Great Recession is the crashing of the housing market in 2007. One of the reasons the stock market crashed was because buying on a margin was getting more popular. This allowed investors to pay a small downpayment to stockbrokers and they could pay the rest later. A similar thing caused the crash of the housing market. Millions of people were buying houses they couldn't afford, with money they didn't have, and taking out massive loans. Americans did not trust banks during the Great Depression and they withdrew all of their money, causing the banks to fail. Banks are failing once again because of Americans' distrust in them. Also, there was a strong decrease in consumer spending and unemployment rates reached the sky during both time periods.
The Dust Bowl occured during the Great Depression which made farmland nearly useless. This caused a major drop of production and income for farmers. Nothing like this triggered the Great Recession. New Deal programs were created to put a stop to the madness of the Great Depression. Now, this didn't end the Depression but it sure helped. There have been no new deals passed to help get us out of the current recession.
http://money.cnn.com/news/storysupplement/economy/recession_depression/
ReplyDeleteThis link sompares and contrast the Great Depression and the great recession today. It gives great examples of how the depression was much worse than the recession. Back then, 50% of the banks closed, but today oly .06% of the banks closed. It also shows how the unemployment rate then was 22% higher than it is today, which is only 8.5%. Another reason the recession isn't as bad as the depression is because the stock market did not drop as low as it did then. In the 30s it dropped 89%, but today it has only
dropped 53%. There were also a lot more government involvement in the recession and they helped people get back on their feet. Basically, the reasons the recession was not as devastating as the depression is because the stock market was not affected as much (because people knew their money was insured by the FDIC), and the government got involved in businesses more today.
Sorry about all of the typos, I'm still not used to typing on the tablets.
Deletehttp://money.cnn.com/2009/03/25/news/economy/depression_comparisons/index.htm
ReplyDeleteThis article tells about how the recession is significant, but not nearly as dangerous as the Depression. It explains that this is the worst downfall in economy since the Depression, but it also tells of how this we have experiences similar recessions the the 70's and the 80's. The recession has had all states reporting job losses, and housing wealth has been significantly worse, just as when we were in the Depression, but it is far less severe. Also, one of the gravest differences in the crisises are the drop in consumer spending. This is one of the key factors in why the recession is not threatening us like the Depression was. If consumer spending were to drop, then we could be in more risk of falling into a full-on depression, which is not very likely.
http://www.thegreatdepressioncauses.com/then-and-now.html
ReplyDeleteWhile I skimmed around for good sources, I found that each article contained a good amount of information, most of which were similarities. The first similarity I found was the fact that people bought on margin today, not unlike when people did it in the 30's. What happened today is different only because the buying happened with houses and not with the stock market. Another common factor was that the lack of consumer spending. As stated in the article, the people of both then and today became "Frugal" in that as soon as they thought their economic position was threatened, they would stop spending money, thus sending less and less money into the economy, sending business down. When it comes down to which is worse, the Great Depression is far worse that the recession, the statistics even prove it.
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewarticle/articleid/2915581
ReplyDeleteThis site compares fairly well. The authors opinions don't really show up in the opening paragraph but become more and more evident in the later. Some things to think about while reading this it was written on the last day of December in 2008 so all the things done since then have not happened. Also this websites about us page states they want to help investors make informed decisions. This author brings up the gold standard alot, blaming this for the downturn. Also pointing out how the economy, being part of history, repeats its self. It is also very easy so figure out what the similarities and differences are.
://www.frbsf.org/education/activities/drecon/answerxml.cfm?selectedurl=/2002/0212.html
ReplyDeleteBoth the Great Depression and Great Recession followed extraordinary business investment, productivity growth, and economic booms. But both the unemployment and foreclosing bannk problems are not even comparable with almost 30% to less than 10% of unemployment and 9,000+ to 50 some banks closing. Also the economies are both much different with our new policies and the governments of then and now are different inthat for one nnow a days we will spend billions od trillions of dollars that we simply just don't have.