Download Examine the images at your desk and complete - Ms. Mazzini-Chin

Motivation:
Examine the images at your desk
and complete the activity on the
front your hand out.
Get into your pre-determined groups. Work as a team.
Aim: How should the conditions of the Great
Depression influence government responses?
Vocab
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
Rugged Individualism
Hoover vs. FDR
“Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” – by E.Y. Harburg and J. Gorney,
1930
Deflation
Inflation
Stock Market Crash
Hoovervilles
Tickle Down Economics
Pump-Priming Economics
Drought (1931)  Dust Bowl (1933)
Existing Conditions: Deflation
A general decline in prices, often caused by a
reduction in the supply of money or credit. Deflation
can be caused also by a decrease in government,
personal, or investment spending.
The opposite of inflation, deflation has the side effect
of increased unemployment since there is a lower level
of demand in the economy, which can lead to an
economic depression. Central banks attempt to stop
severe deflation, along with severe inflation, in an
attempt to keep the excessive drop in prices to a
minimum.
Declining prices, if they persist, generally create a
vicious spiral of negatives such as falling
profits, closing factories, shrinking employment
and incomes, and increasing defaults on loans by
companies and individuals. To counter deflation,
the Federal Reserve (the Fed) can use monetary
policy to increase the money supply and
deliberately induce rising prices, causing
inflation. Rising prices provide an essential lubricant
for any sustained recovery because
businesses increase profits and take some of the
depressive pressures off wages and debtors of
every kind.
Existing Conditions: Inflation
The rate at which the general level of prices for goods and
services is rising, and, subsequently, purchasing power is falling.
The government can increase inflation by increasing the amount
of money in circulation so that more people have money to use,
and to pay the higher prices for goods and services.
Central banks attempt to stop severe inflation, along with severe
deflation, in an attempt to keep the excessive growth of prices to
a minimum.
As inflation rises, every dollar will buy a smaller percentage of a
good. For example, if the inflation rate is 2%, then a $1 pack of
gum will cost $1.02 in a year.
Most countries' central banks will try to sustain an inflation rate
of 2-3%.
Essential Questions:
(1) What were the social and cultural effects of
the Great Depression?
(1) How should political leadership respond to
the Great Depression?
Problems:
• Unemployment: 25% (1 out of 4 white men unemployed). African
Americans: 50% (2 out of 4).
• Children – child labor was back, didn’t attend school, hunger, cold.
• Dust Bowl – limited irrigation, high winds, dirt, dangerous, Great
Plains/Midwest unlivable.
• Many Migrants, especially from the plains, driving out west (CA),
created Hoovervilles – homes out of trash.
• Elderly – no pensions, so retirement, not enough money to support
themselves.
• Food was rationed/difficult to transport
• Everyone in the family had to participate in the economic
sphere/couldn’t afford to be sick.
• John Steinbeck: Grapes of Wrath – popular novel about the
Depression. Takes place in the Midwest, tells the story of a
migrating family. RURAL experience.
Streets the day the NY stock market crashed
A crowd gathers outside New York’s American Union Bank during
a bank run in 1931.
Hungry Americans waiting in line for food during the
Great Depression
Unemployment line in New York City
The Elderly
Hoovervilles
Farmers
Activity: You are running for President!
Look at the documents and with your Teams
create an economic-social plan that will work for
the nation in need.
Your plan must include:
(a)4 bullet pointed specific solutions to specific
problems.
(b)What agency/program/law will be used to
make those solutions a reality?
(c)Your team must be able to argue your plan.
Create a T-Chart
What were the principles/approaches offered by each
Presidential Candidate?
Hoover
FDR
FDR “Priming the Pump” VS HOOVER “Trickle Down”
GOV’T Creates programs to give people Government gives money to business.
jobs
Everyone has more $
Businesses build more factories
More $ = People buy more goods
New Factories = More Jobs
More investment in business
Increased Production
Businesses build more factories
Everyone has more money
New Factories = New Jobs
People can buy more items and fix the
Business making more $, which fixes the economy.
economy.
How did Hoover’s and FDR’s plans measure up
according to popular opinion?
Keynesian Economics or Laissez Faire?
(FDR OR HOOVER – Election of 1932)
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Individual Work:
Write a thesis statement about which candidate you would vote in
Give three pieces of evidence to defend your choice.
Present a counter-claim and argue against it.
Concluding Sentence.
✔+ Strong clear thesis statement, 3 analytical arguments with
specific evidence. Thoughtful counter-claim and rebuttal.
Concluding sentence.
✔ Clear thesis, at least 2 analytical arguments made with each
document, one counter claim, no concluding sentence
✔- Missing a thesis/missing evidence/missing
the counter claim.
Can government intervention, oversight, and regulation solve
the problems of an economic depression?
President Obama Wants More Oversight and Regulations on Business
"Taken together, we are proposing the most ambitious overhaul of the
financial system since the Great Depression. But I want to emphasise that
these reforms are rooted in a simple principle: we ought to set clear rules
of the road that promote transparency and accountability. That's how we'll
make certain that markets foster responsibility, not recklessness, and
reward those who compete honestly and vigorously within the system,
instead of those who try to game the system.
First, we're proposing new rules to protect consumers and a new consumer
financial protection agency to enforce those rules. This crisis was not just
the result of decisions made by the mightiest of financial firms. It was also
the result of decisions made by ordinary Americans to open credit cards
and take on mortgages. And while there were many who took out loans
they knew they couldn't afford, there were also millions of Americans who
signed contracts they didn't fully understand offered by lenders who didn't
always tell the truth.”
http://www.npr.org/2012/10/08/1624
00400/obamas-jobs-plan-focuses-onfederal-investment