Back story of the Great Recession
The Great Recession is one of the more complicated systemic failures that occurred throughout history. Similarly, the origin story of it is even more complicated. The Great Recession, is said to have started from a housing crisis back in 2007, in the United States. The reason for that housing crisis was due to how a mortgage is worked with by the banks and investors. At the time house mortgages were gaining popularity for investors as the initial pay off seemed to good to be true. People were buying shares of house mortgages and even betting on whether a house owner would default on his mortgage or not. However, due to a high increase in unregulated risk, the whole system collapsed on itself, as a huge increase in supply rushed into the market being houses, and a huge decrease for demand of those houses, as to many house owners were defaulting on their mortgages. This rippled into the global market as seen in Figure 1.
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Figure 12 - Map of the Global great recession. #
But how did The Great Recession the cultural nation of East Yankeedom? The answer isn't a clear yes or no, as it would be best to put it in betters terms of not equally, but still pretty bad. In order to see that, we'll need to take a look at two very well known cities in East Yankeedom, Boston Massachusetts, and Cleveland Ohio.
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Boston, Massachusetts
According to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, "Analysis of the Economic Impact of the Recession on Massachusetts", Initially, from late 2007 till august 2008, the state had done very well versus the Recession. They had actually gained 800 jobs during that time frame. Though this "Better than average performance" wasn't a lasting one, as right after the Recession hit hard, causing the loss of over 100,000 jobs across the state and unemployment jumped from 5.4% to 8%. The delay of the Recession in Massachusetts was due to its industry of choice at the time being mix industries, with a big portion of them including knowledge based industries such as the health and educational industries.
However, the residence of the city of Boston wasn't gonna go down with a fight. The City is know for it history in protesting, as it was where the iconic Boston Tea Party happened, which protested the taxation on Tea by dumping it into the river. During 2009, multiple people had gone out of there way to protest against the banks during The Great Recession. This because the United States government had given out "bank bailouts" in order to prevent them from failing. Though, this put more suspicion on the fact banks were not regulated, and that they seemed to be the root cause of initial housing crisis. Today Boston's Economy is back on the up, however, it is important to note that The Great Recession, wasn't even the largest economic flop for Boston in the 21rst century. That goes to the COVID-19 Pandemic, which actually, according to "Boston's People and Economy" had an unemployment rate of over 8% within the the city allow. |
Figure 13 - Cancelled Dreams, Banksy in Boston #
Figure 14 - Bank of America Protest in Boston 2009 #
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Cleveland, Ohio
Massachusetts, and the city of Boston did get hit hard by The Great Recession but it see an initial success and also recovery, however, Cleveland Ohio is a whole other story. By 2010, Over 415,000 jobs were lost in Ohio allow, and to this day many cities that still haven't recovered from The Great Recession are currently in state of Ohio. Cleveland is one of the cities that was better off than the others south of it, as it has a huge economic sector in the state. Currently Cleveland has some what recovered based on its GDP growth. According to FRED Economic Data, During a time period of around 2001 to 2021, the biggest drop in economic growth in GDP based on chained dollars was during the years 2008 to 2009, far greater than the one in 2019 to 2020 during the COVID-19 Pandemic. The overall area suffered huge in family crisis's, massive unemployment, and massive division in wealth. As a matter of fact, in 2017 Cleveland had the highest Child Poverty rate at almost 49%, in the whole nation of the United States. Drops in housing prices were in the tens of thousands, the worst in the nation, reported in Amy Hanauer's "Ohio's economy no longer fully recovers after recessions". The Situation in Cleveland is far worse than that of Boston, and this difference shows how vast East Yankeedom is economically speaking. To this day The Great Recession shows it's head not only across East Yankeedom, but also the world we all live in.
Sources for this page
1) Commonwealth Of Massachusetts, Analysis of the Economic Impact of the Recession on Massachusetts, June 2009, accessed April 15th 2023, https://www.doleta.gov/Programs/2008ReportsAndPlans/Economic_Analysis_Reports/MA.pdf
2) Boston’s People and Economy, accessed April 15th 2023, https://www.boston.gov/sites/default/files/file/2022/04/6%20-Volume%201%20-%20Boston%E2%80%99s%20People%20and%20Economy.pdf
3) Wikipedia, Tea Party protests, accessed April 15th 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_protests
4) University of Massachusetts Boston ScholarWorks at UMass Boston, Massachusetts and the Financial Crisis, 2012, accessed April 15th 2023, https://scholarworks.umb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=financialforum_pubs
5) Federal Reserve History, The Great Recession and Its Aftermath, 2007- , accessed April 15th 2023, www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/great-recession-and-its-aftermath
6) Economic Policy Institute, Amy Hanauer, Ohio's economy no longer fully recovers after recessions, May 23 2019, Accessed April 15th 2023, www.epi.org/blog/ohios-economy-no-longer-fully-recovers-after-recessions/
7) FRED Economic Data, Total Real Gross Domestic Product for Cleveland-Elyria, OH (MSA), last updated on December 8 2022, accessed April 15th, fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RGMP17460
2) Boston’s People and Economy, accessed April 15th 2023, https://www.boston.gov/sites/default/files/file/2022/04/6%20-Volume%201%20-%20Boston%E2%80%99s%20People%20and%20Economy.pdf
3) Wikipedia, Tea Party protests, accessed April 15th 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_protests
4) University of Massachusetts Boston ScholarWorks at UMass Boston, Massachusetts and the Financial Crisis, 2012, accessed April 15th 2023, https://scholarworks.umb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=financialforum_pubs
5) Federal Reserve History, The Great Recession and Its Aftermath, 2007- , accessed April 15th 2023, www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/great-recession-and-its-aftermath
6) Economic Policy Institute, Amy Hanauer, Ohio's economy no longer fully recovers after recessions, May 23 2019, Accessed April 15th 2023, www.epi.org/blog/ohios-economy-no-longer-fully-recovers-after-recessions/
7) FRED Economic Data, Total Real Gross Domestic Product for Cleveland-Elyria, OH (MSA), last updated on December 8 2022, accessed April 15th, fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RGMP17460