The More Factors:
Economy in Crisis
The Great Recession marked the global financial degeneration which began in the winter of 2007 and took a predominantly harsh downturn in the fall of 2008. The Great Recession also, known as the global recession exaggerated the entire world economy. The Great Recession is a major global epidemic characterized by innumerable systemic imbalances that were generated by the financial corruption and greed of Wall Street. The U.S. faces persistently high unemployment, low consumer confidence and negative home equity, resulting in mass foreclosures. America has been plagued by three periods of profound economic disaster: the Great Depression, the crisis of the 1970s and the current financial crisis; however, America has provided unlimited opportunities that can be achieved through perseverance and hard work. Americans have been revered as optimist for the future of the American dream with the presumption that there will always be another great discovery that will change our status in the global economy. However, the same optimism that motivates is the same optimism that corrupts.
America has provided many opportunities and resources throughout the centuries to be extorted. According to Laurence Shames, author of “The More Factor”, big business effects on the country can be traced back to the frontier period. Shames argued, “America was those opportunities. This was an article not just faith, but of strategy” (91). Railroad tycoons built makeshift towns, with paid townsmen to stay for census; in order to get additional railroad stations. Although the towns were emptied after the census, it proved that big business was willing to do what was necessary to reach their goals. Shames also argued that the optimism “shaped the schemes and visions that were sometimes noble, sometimes appalling, always bold” (92).
American greed shaped the foundation of the Great Depression, as well as our current recession. The role of...