Review Of The Last 40 Years Six Presidents Every Crisis And What Happened To The Stock Market
Jimmy Carter (1977-1981)
In desperation, President Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) tried to combat economic weakness and unemployment by increasing government spending, and he established voluntary wage and price guidelines to control inflation. Both were largely unsuccessful. A perhaps more successful but less dramatic attack on inflation involved the "deregulation" of numerous industries, including airlines, trucking, and railroads.
In 1977 President Jimmy Carter signed the Community Redevelopment Act (or CRA) into law. As a result of "national grassroots pressure for affordable housing", it forced banks to underwrite risky mortgage loans in order to meet the needs of "the entire community."
Carter was unable to resolve the energy crisis as he had promised during his campaign in 1976. Carter's weak leadership drained American confidence and prestige, and his clumsy regulation of energy markets and dithering on inflation damaged the economy.
Ronald Reagan 1981-1989 (Watch The Video)
By 1982, “Reaganomics” had taken its toll as several banks failed, the stock market plummeted, and unemployment soared in the worst economic recession since the Great Depression.
A shaky stock market finally buckled on October 19, 1987, or Black Monday, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost nearly 23 percent of its value in a single day. $560 billion in paper assets disappeared. Reagan reassured the nation that the economy would remain stable and tried to help the economy by reducing some deficit spending and increasing some taxes. These measures could not prevent stock markets around the world from buckling.
He revived the theory of containment by declaring the U.S.S.R. an “evil empire” that had to be stopped. His Reagan Doctrine announced that the United States would take action to prevent communist insurgency abroad, effectively reversing the Nixon Doctrine of the early 1970s. His Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars” program, sought to outspend the Soviets and bring them to the negotiating table to prevent economic collapse.
He supported Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika reform initiatives. He met with Gorbachev at four different summits to discuss arms reduction. He signed the INF Treaty that removed all Soviet warheads aimed at Western Europe, effectively ending the Cold War.
Even though Reagan championed limited government, he spent more money than all previous presidents combined. He cut funding to most social welfare programs in favor of financing defense and military programs. He drastically slashed corporate taxes, hoping that the extra money would “trickle down” to the average worker. He deregulated the banking industry. His enormous deficit spending ensured that Congress would not be able to fund more social welfare programs for a very long time.
George H.W. Bush 1989-1993 (Watch The Video)
The savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s (commonly referred to as the S&L crisis) was the failure of 747 savings and loan associations (S&Ls) in the United States. The ultimate cost of the crisis is estimated to have totaled around $160.1 billion, about $124.6 billion of which was directly paid for by the U.S. government—that is, the U.S. taxpayer, either directly or through charges on their savings and loan accounts which contributed to the large budget deficits of the early 1990s.
As Commander-in-Chief, Bush oversaw two major U.S. military deployments. He ordered the invasion of Panama, which began just after midnight on December 20, 1989. It was the twelfth U.S. invasion of that country since 1903. The mission of U.S. forces was to depose long-time CIA asset General Manuel Noriega, an indicted drug trafficker. It was the largest airborne assault since World War II. Generally the Bush presidency is viewed as successful in foreign affairs but a disappointment in domestic affairs.His achievements in foreign policy were not enough to overshadow the economic recession, and in 1992.
His failure to decrease the national debt and the unemployment rate continued to worsen his approval rating while the Japanese were continuing to creep in on American business.
Bill Clinton 1993-2001 (Watch The Video)
In 1995 the Clinton administration strengthened the regulations of the Community Redevelopment Act. The CRA enabled consumers to secure mortgages with "no verification of income or assets; little consideration of the applicant's ability to make payments; and no down payment."
In 1998, Russia and Brazil saw their economies enter a free-fall, and international stock markets, from New York to Tokyo, hit record lows as investors' confidence was shaken by the volatility and unpredictability in the world's financial markets.
Clinton quietly used OPEC oil diplomacy to supply Russia increased energy profits. The influx of cash into Moscow was mainly obtained through Iraqi oil sold by the U.N. and distributed through Russian suppliers. The cash paid for the Russian war and a new round of rampant corruption, centered on the former Soviet GAZPROM state oil company. However, there were also unexpected results. The oil sales helped Saddam Hussein re-arm his military with a brand new Chinese-built air defense system. The move is also now seen as a major blunder that triggered the 2001 recession.
The "dot-com bubble" was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2001 (with a climax on March 10, 2000 with the NASDAQ peaking at 5132.52) during which stock markets in Western nations saw their value increase rapidly from growth in the new Internet sector and related fields. The period was marked by the founding (and, in many cases, spectacular failure) of a group of new Internet-based companies commonly referred to as dot-coms. A combination of rapidly increasing stock prices, individual speculation in stocks, and widely available venture capital created an exuberant environment in which many of these businesses dismissed standard business models, focusing on increasing market share at the expense of the bottom line.
Over 1999 and early 2000, the Federal Reserve had increased interest rates six times, and the runaway economy was beginning to lose speed. The dot-com bubble burst, numerically, on March 10, 2000, when the technology heavy NASDAQ Composite index peaked at 5,048.62 (intra-day peak 5,132.52), more than double its value just a year before.
George W. Bush 2001-2009 (Watch The Video)
President Bush inherited an economic climate in which, due to regulatory missteps and an unnecessarily volatile monetary policy, a stock market bubble was in the midst of bursting.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, terrorists attacked our Nation. President Bush took unprecedentedsteps to protect our homeland and create a world free from terror. He was grateful for the service and sacrifice of our brave men and women in uniform and their families. The President believed that by helping build free and prosperous societies, our Nation and our friends and allies can succeed in making America more secure and the world more peaceful.
During the first nine months of 2008, federal officials sought to support an increasingly shaky banking system one crisis at a time. But since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September sent shocks around the global financial system and brought down giants like the American Insurance Group and Washington Mutual. Lending the money proved no problem. Paying it back is, as we have seen, a different story. The credit watchdog agencies Moody's, Standard and Poor's, and Fitch Ratings gave glowing recommendations to substandard real estate lenders like Countrywide Financial, overlooking in their reviews the inherent risks. From the fees it extracted, Moody's enjoyed profit margins that were higher than the richest Fortune 500 companies, including Exxon and Microsoft.
Over the past eight years, we’ve suffered calamities that were bound to damage the nation deeply: two recessions, the most lethal terrorist attacks ever on U.S. soil, the invasion of Iraq on dubious grounds, the near destruction of one of our most storied cities, and finally, the Wall Street meltdown.
January 12th 2009 I inherited a recession, I’m ending on a recession,” he noted at his press conference on January 12th. He wasn’t asking for pity, only to be judged on what happened in between. Unfortunately, that economic legacy is littered with wasted opportunity, bad judgments and politicised policy. The budget surplus he inherited is now a deficit, the fiscal hole in America’s retiree programmes is bigger than ever, the tax system is an unstable, patched-up mess. Banks have been nationalized; the auto industry may not survive. Consumer confidence, and the purchasing power it generates, is in the tank.
January 16th 2009 Troubles continued in the financial sector -- both Citigroup and the Bank of America needed second rounds of capital infusions, and federal guarantees against losses totalling tens of billions more -- while Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, warned that more capital injections might be needed to further stabilize the financial system. On Jan. 16, the Senate voted 52-42 to release the second round of funds.
President Barack Obama 2009-?
He was elected the 44th President of the United States on November 4, 2008, and sworn in on January 20, 2009.
On Feb. 10, Mr. Geither presented the rough outlines of the Obama administration's plan. A central piece of the proposal would create one or more so-called bad banks that would rely on taxpayer and private money to purchase and hold banks' bad assets.
In his first address to a joint session of Congress, Obama mixed an acknowledgment of the depth of the economic problems with a Reaganesque exhortation to American resilience and an expansive agenda with a pledge to begin paring down a soaring budget deficit. "While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken, though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this," Obama said. "We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before."
Bailout: Obama said bank rescue would likely cost will more than the $700 billion allocated and that money deposited in banks is safe.
Obama Memorabilia is right now Obama-Mania.........What's up with all the plates and coins?
