Literary Analysis
Money Well Spent by Michael Grabell is a book about Michael Grabell posing one crucial question about The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which was the largest economic recovery plan in history. The $825 billion package known as “the stimulus” was five times more expensive than the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Moreover, the recovery plan cost well over a trillion dollars. In addition, one question Michael Grabell posed to himself: was the taxpayers’ money well spent? Therefore, to get his answers he followed the progression of the stimulus projects across the country, scrutinizing how reality and spin often collided.
As an illustration, Michael Grabell speaks about signs of recession in March 2009; and how the recession consumed many states across the United States in the fall of 2008. Employment rates were decreasing, Unemployment rates were off the charts and there were many house foreclosures. Furthermore, in Krugman’s Economics for AP* it goes more into depth about the signs of recessions and house foreclosures which can be seen in Module 2. Here, it talks about the many signs of recessions-- inflation, deflation and labor force, which is the total amount of people that are employed and unemployed. In addition to, which they are vigorously looking for work but are not currently employed. Moreover, a few modules ahead Krugman’s textbook also talks about what some individuals did to survive the recession. For instance, Home foreclosures caused tax revenues to plummet. Not to mention, how at the same time more people sought Medicaid and food stamps to survive the recession.
Subsequently, both Krugman Economics textbook for AP and Money Well Spent talk about the recovery plan. W...
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... cost and the financial system. Regardless, Michael Grabell in Money Well Spent also speaks about the deficit and says how it had more to do with the Bush tax cuts and prescription drug plan than the stimulus package and Grabell concluded that it could hinder America’s recovery towards a firmer foundation. In both books, each of the authors speaks about deficit, Recovery Act and signs of recession. However, Krugman defines each of the definitions and gives example afterwards and in Money Well Spent Michael Grabell gives his insight about the challenges America faced with undergoing recession, recovery act and deficit and how the taxpayers’ money were not well spent in his opinion. Given these points, I have learned a lot about the signs of recession, deficit and the recovery act in both of these books Krugman Economics for AP and Money Well Spent by Michael Grabell.
In this text “What money can’t buy’’ Sandel faces one of the highest ethical issues of our time and provokes a debate which was absent in our age obsessed with money: what is the proper role of markets in a democratic society, and how do you protect the moral and civic goods that markets do not respect and that money cannot buy?
Teslik, Lee. "Backgrounder: The U.S. Economic Stimulus Plan." The New York Times, January 27, 2009.
Many argue that Reagan “enacted irresponsible tax giveaways for the rich…[starving] the federal government of revenue [which] led to unprecedented deficits.” There is no doubt that “today’s budget deficits [can] impoverish our descendants.”1
Biles describes each of these programs, their purpose, how they were developed, and how they operated. He then goes into analyzing each of these programs pointing out their strengths and weaknesses and how they affected the economy individually. “For all it did, the New Deal could have done much more” (115). Biles felt that after analyzing these relief programs, they didn’t do nearly enough to boost the economy, supporting his view with the unemployment rate dropping from 19.1% in 1938 to 14.6& in 1940 (226). The programs did help many people but their were also many Americans who received no
Perhaps Roosevelt’s greatest blunders occurred in his attempts to fix the economy. The Nation claimed that “some [of his programs] assisted and some retarded the recovery of industrial activity.” They went so far as to say that “six billion dollars was added to the national debt.” All of this is true. Roosevelt’s deficit spending, provoked by the English economist John Maynard Keynes, did add to the already high national debt while his programs did not solve the record-high unemployment rate. This “enormous outpouring of federal money for human relief and immense sums for public-works projects [that] started to flow to all points of the compass” and nearly doubled the nation’s debt also brought about many changes that were, in a large sense, revolutionary (Document C).
Since being founded, America became a capitalist society. Being a capitalist society obtains luxurious benefits and rather harsh consequences if gone bad. In a capitalist society people must buy products and spend money to keep the economy balanced, but once those people stop spending money, the economy goes off balance and the nation enters a recession. Once a recession drastically takes a downturn, the nation enters what is known as a depression. In 2008 America entered a recession and its consequences were severe enough for some people, such as President Barack Obama, to compare the recent crisis to the world’s darkest economic depression in history, the Great Depression. Although the Great Depression and the Great Recession of 2008 hold similarities and differences between the stock market and government spending, political issues, lifestyle changes, and wealth distribution, the Great Depression proved far more detrimental consequences than the Recession.
Throughout history there have only been two major economic downturns. The Great Depression and the Recession of 2008 both occurred due to poor financial policies and excessive spending. Both events left people with a sense of hopelessness and vulnerability. A comparison of the Great Depression Era and The Recession of 2008 reveals similarities in causes and effects economically, socially, and politically.
Every few years, countries experience an economic decline which is commonly referred to as a recession. In recent years the U.S. has been faced with overcoming the most devastating global economic hardships since the Great Depression. This period “a period of declining GDP, accompanied by lower real income and higher unemployment” has been referred to as the Great Recession (McConnell, 2012 p.G-30). This paper will cover the issues which led to the recession, discuss the strategies taken by the Government and Federal Reserve to alleviate the crisis, and look at the future outlook of the U.S. economy. By examining the nation’s economic struggles during this time period (2007-2009), it will conclude that the current macroeconomic situation deals with unemployment, which is a direct result of the recession.
The total cost of the Recovery act to US taxpayers was $787 billion dollars. The bill itself was created with the belief that increases in spending on the federal level would create and save jobs during recessions. More specifically, the purpose of the bill was to create jobs, drop the unemployment rate, stimulate the economy, have better quality of schools, and have better quality and efficiency of everyday life. The allocations of funds designated by the law are as follows: $81 Billion for protecting the vulnerable, $43 billion for energy, $59 billion for healthcare, $144 billion for state budget relief, $8 billion for other needs, $111 Billion for infrastructure and science, $53 Billion in education and jobs training, and the largest portion $288 Billion in the form of tax relief through the use of tax credits and increase business deductions.
Nonetheless, lenders and realtors had their slice of the pie and leave most home owners in up sided-down mortgages. The job loss during the Great Recession has meant that family incomes have dropped, poverty has risen, and adults as well as children have lost health insurance. Many Americans continue to struggle, while the rich continues to get even
Economist John Maynard Keynes is credited with giving deficit spending academic legitimacy when he published “The General Theory” in 1936, even though many of his ideas were rebranded. (Deficit Spending, 2008) The advantages of deficit spending are that is helps
The U.S budget deficit over the years has been a problem but lately the deficit has shrunk. However, what made the U.S budget deficit get to where it is today and what will it be like in the years to come. Throughout the past the U.S has operated under a deficit. This means that the U.S Spent more money than it was taking in. The cause of the excess in spending was different depending on which year. Some of the causes were war, increase in spending , and economic downturns. There were different acts passed to try and control the deficit problem. The deficit at the present time is declining. This decline is due to the improving economy, sequester, and a tax increase on high-income households. The big factor that went into the decline in the deficit for 2013 was the payment that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made. The deficit decline in the present time may make some think the U.S could get out of debt but it has been projected that the U.S deficit will start to increase once again.
Kenneth Vogel’s Big Money explores the invasion of money into our political system. In the novel, Vogel explains one of the most important important events that is currently happening in today’s elections: donors. This, according to Vogel, has been brought on by a ruling in the case Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission. The result of this case destroyed finance restrictions, giving Corporations and Unions the same laws of freedom of speech as individual Americans. The novel opens in February of 2012 where Vogel sneaks into a donor banquet. As our current president, Barack Obama, gives his speech, Vogel makes a note of the President’s words. In particular, Vogel focuses on one line “You now have the potential
middle of paper ... ... It is evident that although we may be entering into a recession on different terms than the one before, the United States is still in danger of once again becoming a victim of another Great Depression. The Great Depression is a time in the history of the United States that people have learned and gained knowledge from. Its harsh times and conflicts have been written about in books, seen in movies, talked about on radios, and told to families throughout the generations.
In Junot Diaz’s essay “The Money” he explains where his family stands economically. Stating that his father was regularly being fired from his forklifting jobs and his mother 's only job was to care for him and his four siblings. With the money brought home by his father, his mom would save some. Her reason was to raise enough to send to her parents back in the Dominican Republic. When his family went on a vacation, they came back to an unpleasant surprise; their house had been broke into. Eventually Diaz was able to get back their money and belongings. Diaz returned the money to his mother although she didn’t thank him for it, this disappointed him. Like Diaz I have also encountered a similar situation where I was disappointed. When I was in second grade, my life life took a completely different turn. My dad took an unexpected trip to Guatemala, on his return, the outcome was not what I expected.