Our Economic Crisis

Our economic situation today is known as a recession. A recession is an economic time period where there is a general economic decline for two or more consecutive quarters, a few month intervals. As of October 2008, our country was announced to be in a recession. The last time we declared to be in a recession was in 2001, after the September 11, 2001 attack. This recession lasted about 18 months, until our economy was back on track. However, the recession of today seems to be more comparable to the Great Depression of 1929- 1939, rather than the 2001 recession.

It seems as though our recession of today is most comparable to the Great Depression. As a result, we can look upon the Great Depression for insight as to how to solve this economic crisis. As a result of the Great Depression, President FDR created the “New Deals.” These were programs which were introduced to help jump start the economy, in hopes of getting America out of the Great Depression. The top three New Deals of President FDR were Civil Conservation Corps, Civil Works Administration, and Federal Housing Administration. The Civil Conservation Corps and Civil Works Administration worked to create more jobs in the public, such as railroad tracks, buildings and roads. However, the Federal housing Administration was built to create more houses to those who are less fortunate. As a result of FDR’s New Deals our country came out of the Great Depression in 1939. However, will these New Deals work for America today? In President FDR’s inaugural address of 1939, he stated about the unemployment rate. FDR replied, “More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toll with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.” Obviously, FDR was tying to portray the image that this process of rebuilding our economy will take a lot of hard work, determination, and time. Even though these New Deals worked in the Great Depression, one does not know whether or not these programs will be the solution to this economic solution. Therefore, one can only try and try again until we are out of this economic crisis. As Barack Obama prepares for office, he is creating programs which will hopefully give us the jump start which the New Deals did. In one of Obama’s speech, Obama said, “…“change we need goes beyond laws and regulation – we need a shift in the cultures of our financial institutions and our regulatory agencies.” It is apparent that President-elect Obama realizes that this process will be long and hard, and will acquire much hard work to change the way we once were.

In today’s world, President-elect Obama has many choices as to what to do, in order to assist our country. It seems to me as though Obama needs to follow the guild lines of the New Deal in order to be successful. For example, an employing program must be installed, for those who have been recently laid off. Moreover, houses need to be provided for those who have no place to live. Even though these seem identical to the New Deals, Obama needs to create programs which model after the Great Depression’s solution yet are much more contemporary.

Our country was not officially called into a recession until this past October. However, it feels as though we have been in this recession for over a year. If our government had announced that we were in a recession before this past year, then our country would have had more time to analyze, assess, and do something about this problem. Without formally announcing we were in a recession, people continued to live their daily lives, if they were not affected. However, those who were affected by the ‘recession’ were receiving no assistance or compensation. As a result, the people who were not being helped thought that our country did not want to help them get back on their feet. It made the government seem as though people suffering were not as important, yet that is not true. Ergo, I believe that the government should have announced our recession a long time ago to start the healing process physically and mentally, to our country.

To President-elect Obama, I say good luck! My advice to him simply includes being honest with the American people. If he is to tell us step by step what he is doing, then more of the American population will have faith in him. Subsequently, a piece of advice I have for President- elect Obama, is to provide for the people on main street first, then Wall Street. I have complete faith in Obama that he will be able to bring our country together. At one of Obama’s speech, Renewing the Economy, Obama stated, “Now it falls to us. We have as our inheritance the greatest economy the world has ever known. We have the responsibility to continue the work that began on that spring day over two centuries ago right here in Manhattan, to renew our common purpose for a new century and to write the next chapter in the story of America's success. We can do this, and we can begin this work today.” With this, I have confidence that Obama will learn from the mistakes of our country, the strong decisions of our country (the New Deals) and the people, in order to restore our once strong economy.

http://www.investorwords.com/4086/recession.html
http://www.doctorhousingbubble.com/the-sham-of-our-current-unemployment-rate-numbers-lessons-from-the-great-depression-part-x-data-mining/
http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/fdr-inaugural/images/address-2.gif
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/obamas-speech-on-the-economy/
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/us/politics/27text-obama.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all
http://americanhistory.about.com/od/greatdepression/tp/new_deal_programs.htm