Time for a Break

We’ve had a week to celebrate President’s Day, catch up on sleep, and perhaps read a good book. I hope you took the time to do whatever you find most restful so upon your return you are ready to delve into our next units. While there was no formal homework over the break, I just know you were watching the news and keeping up with the outside world! So much has been happening in Northern Africa as citizens of Libya try to emulate what happened in Tunisia and Egypt by overthrowing the 40 year reign of Omar Kaddafi. Instability in this oil-producing region could play havoc with the world economy…just look at the price of gasoline over the past week.

Modern America in a Global World

In the week before the break we watched excerpts from the PBS video “The Crash of 1929” that helped us better understand the irrational exuberance of the stock market and the ultimate crash. The nation was faced with high unemployment, a sluggish economy, and families driven into destitution. President Hoover believed the situation would ultimately correct itself and urged banks and companies to participate in voluntary programs that would aid the economy. In the election of 1932, America had a clear choice between Hoover and his voluntary approach and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s approach that called for massive government intervention, which he called The New Deal. The citizens spoke clearly and elected FDR in a landslide.

We also reenacted the decisions families had to make during the Depression on how they would try to increase their income and cut down on spending. We quickly discovered that a family’s spending helps provide someone else’s income, while tightening our belts actually hurts the community. During tough times we want to protect ourselves from the unknown but cutting back too far on spending slows the recovery. All you have to do to see this effect is to drive down Thames Street in Newport and look at the empty shop windows. Small business has been especially hurt during today’s rough economic times.

We had our final assessment on the last Friday before break. All of the questions came from our class activities so I expect some excellent grades. After the assessment you were given the New Deal chart that will allow you to organize information about the programs FDR and Congress implemented to improve the economy. Be on the lookout while you are watching the news or reading the on-line papers for the programs President Obama and Congress are working on to put people back to work.

Accountable Talk

Because of my absence, we did not have the opportunity to conduct our accountable talk discussion based on the Economist reading and the Bob Herbert column. We will do this activity when you return on Monday so please be prepared. You also have your income distribution charts that you may use during our discussion. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the disparate levels of income within this country. Were you surprised to find that the top 5% of the people own 72%of the wealth in the US while the bottom 80% of the population own 7% of the wealth?

We will also start our new but very short unit on the New Deal. We will look at the role of government and what programs were put in place in the 1930’s so another Great Depression would not happen. Some of these safeguards were abandoned in the late 1990s and many believe that is why we came so close to having another depression when financial markets collapsed. You will be hearing debate for a long time to come over the government programs enacted in the past three years to prevent an even greater decline – did the government do too much or too little?

This is the time for you to start thinking about what role government should play in our lives. It is easy to dismiss “big” government and urge the least amount of regulation but when serious issues and challenges confront our country, many look to the government for help. Once we come to some conclusions about the role of government, we then have to ask who should pay for these services. Should people with a greater income pay a greater share or should people at all income levels pay the same percentage in taxes?

International Speakers Series

On February 14 we heard from the Kazakhstan and Germany international officers who are attending the Naval War College. Their power point presentations, remarks and question and answer periods gave us new insights into two countries who have had a history of conflict but since the fall of the USSR, have become allies. Our series continues in March.