Kordels Blog

The New Deal was a series of programs and projects instituted during the  Great Depression by President Franklin D. Roosevelt that aimed to restore  prosperity to Americans. When Roosevelt took office in 1933, he acted swiftly  to stabilize the economy and provide jobs and relief to those who were  suffering. Over the next eight years, the government instituted a series of  experimental New Deal projects and programs, such as the CCC, the WPA,  the TVA, the SEC and others, that aimed to restore some measure of dignity  and prosperity to many Americans. Roosevelt’s New Deal fundamentally and  permanently changed the federal government’s relationship to U.S. citizens. 1. What was the New Deal?  a series of programs and projects put in place 1933 2. What was the purpose of the New Deal ?  to help poor americans 3. Do you think the government should step in when the economy is bad ?  yes the governement could help out the ec...

 U.S. prosperity in the 1920s had been based to a large extent on the sale of houses and automobiles. Consumers for the first time could buy houses and cars on the installment plan, and they were eager to do so.  These purchases created jobs for workers who built homes and cars, the furniture and appliances that went into new homes and the steel and other materials that were used to produce cars.  Jobs were also created as business firms built new plants and bought new equipment to produce what consumers wanted.  Governments built paved roads for the new automobiles and electric plants and water and sewage facilities to service the new households.  The prosperity of workers in all these industries allowed them to spend a lot of money, thus providing income to other workers — income which they in turn spent to buy other goods and services.  Economists call the spread of such new spending a  multiplier effect  — one person’s spending...

One of the great mysteries of the twentieth century is how the U.S. economy could have gone from a state of unprecedented prosperity in the 1920s to one of unprecedented failure in the 1930s. In the 1920s, jobs were plentiful, the economy was growing and the standard of living was rising. Between 1920 and 1929, home ownership had doubled, and most home-owning families enjoyed amenities, including electric lights and flush toilets, once regarded as luxuries. Sixty percent of all households had automobiles, up from 26 percent in 1920. More teenagers were attending high school; fewer were working full time. Leading political and economic figures of the day said that the United States appeared to have reached “a permanent plateau of peace and prosperity.” 1.  How was the economy doing in the 1920's ? Give one example expanding doing good  But by 1933 at least one fourth of the U.S. labor force was unemployed, and about the same percentage was working shorter hours, which reduced t...