The United States: The Impact of Its Economy on Transportation and Logistics Management Transportation and logistics coordinate the movement of goods and people. The transportation and logistics industry is the catalyst that propels the American economy. However, it works both ways. Economic pressures on the national, regional, and local levels affect decisions and policies made by logistics managers. This paper will explore the intricate relationship between the United States economy and Transportation and Logistics management.
Consumer Economy in the United States The subprime mortgage crisis precipitated a recession between 2007 and 2009 although its effects are still felt by many consumers and companies today. The slow recovery is reflected in job growth, unemployment, consumer spending, and inflation.
Jobs
Although the job numbers are growing, they have not recouped the peak numbers from a decade ago. In 2005 the Bureau of Labor Statistics projected employment to grow from 2004’s 145.6 million to 164.5 by 2014 (Hecker, 2005). According to current employment statistics for April 2014 there are 145 million jobs (Bureau of Labor, 2014). This means there are no more jobs today than there were in 2004. Unemployment
The recession and continued economic slow-down increased unemployment. This is partly because some large employers either folded or reduced their workforces, greatly increasing the number of Americans out of work. Tightened banking practices made it more
The unemployment rate has dramatically increased over the last several months. This increase has created many complications for the American people. Although the United States economy has created over 7 million jobs, there is still a long way to go until the economy is back on track.
The largest cause of unemployment can be attributed to recession. The term recession refers to the backward movement of the economy for a long period. People spend only when they have to. (Nagle 2009). With people spending less there would be less money in circulation therefore, enterprises would suffer financially and people would suffer too. This is so because recession reduces the fiscal bases of enterprises, forcing these enterprises to reduce their workforce through layoffs. These enterprises lay off their workers in order to cut the costs they incur in terms of wage and salary payments.
When the stock market crashed and the worries regarding more economic decline, people from all classes stopped purchasing consumer products. Which lead to reduction in consumer products being made, this caused a reduction in the workforce. As people lost their jobs they were unable to pay for the items that were bought on credit. The unemployment rate rose and cause even less spending to assist to lesson the economic situation.
As people became unemployed, the economy suffered because these workers were unable to purchase things. For example, Document 4 shows that at the beginning of 1933, the US employment percentage was above a quarter of the population, and from 1931 to 1940 the unemployment percentage was in the double digits. These large unemployment percentages had a devastating effect on companies who were trying to sell their products to consumers who are always a major driver of the economy. High unemployment along with the stock market crash were a few of the main causes of the Great
During 1997-2006, house prices rose 85 percent. This led to an irresponsible consumer spending spree. Millions of people bought a house that they could not afford. Government regulatory agencies and mortgage lenders became less strict with credit restrictions so that people could buy homes without making any down payment. In 2007, however, the home values and sales began to decline. Due to the loss of trillions of dollars in home value, a record number of borrowers defaulted on their mortgage payments. America was put into a recession in 2008 because of the contraction of corporate spending and consumer purchased. The prices of consumer goods spiked, while employment declined. On October 3, 2008, former President Bush signed the Troubled Asset Relief Program; however, the bill did not restore the economy as a whole. By June 2009, America's economic recovery was at its weakest since the end of the Second World War. I chose this event in history because it had a major effect on America’s economy and changed the course of history. Historians need to study the Great Recession because America should learn from their mistakes. The Great Recession was due to different factors; however, if the regulations on credit restrictions were not tampered with, then the severity of the recession could have been
Unemployment took a huge toll on America’s economy, it created a drought in the economy flow which made debt grow. Debt increased because of home mortgages and consumer credit, people continued to purchase things in loans from credit and they had to money coming in to pay it back (Doc 4). In retrospect the stock market was a bomb waiting to burst, it was the base of people buying stocks on margin and believing everyone would become wealthy by putting their money into the stock market (Doc 5 and 6). Eventually the banks asked for their money back and people went
The recession of 2008 is also called the ‘Great Recession’, said to have begun in December 2007, and took a turn for the worse in September 2008, and it was a severe economic problem expanded globally. This recession affected the world economy, and is said to have been the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression. The decline in the Dow Jones this time was -53.8%. Since the official start of the recession in December 2007, and through June 2010 there have been about 2.3 million homes foreclosed in the United States. In 2012, the state with the most foreclosures in January alone was California, with 51,584 houses being repossessed. Unemployment during this collapse was 8.5%, and continued to increase to about 10% as of 2010. People’s reaction to this recession was a huge decrease in spending and borrowing from banks, but an increase in saving.
With the economy falling in shambles and companies defaulting on loans, nearly all private and corporate investment ceased. Companies couldn’t afford to expand, and in fact, many had to consolidate in order to cover the margins on their loans. This meant postponing hiring and laying workers off, which caused unemployment to skyrocket. With people now willing to work for less money, wages lessened too. At the same time prices rose in an attempt by companies to make some amount of profit off the goods.
Firms cut back on purchases of produce goods and the consumers cut back on the purchases of consumer goods (Galbraith 117). This uncertainty mixed with the stock market crash created the biggest recession America has ever seen.
The housing bubble went into full effect by December of 2007, and is seen to be the leading cause of the Great Recession. With the lowering of interest by mortgage associations, lead to those who had poor credit to obtain a mortgage. Those
Similarly, the Great Recession was due to consumer spending cutbacks and a drop in demand for the establishment of new housing. In the two decades previous to 2008, the American growth rate was very high. Their household needs also became very high, which made demand increase. Spending was at a high. However personal income was decreased. The consumers then had to borrow money from the banks. This gave the consumers debt. So, when the house prices rose, banks stopped loaning money to people and the people decreased their spending. This happened because the people were not able to pay the banks back. People also cut back on buying or making new houses, so household demand dropped. Many say that this decrease caused the Great Recession. Housing was one of the main subjects that many believe, caused the Great Recession. “Subprime” mortgage availability and low interest
The blame can be put on the U.S. financial institutions. The banks granted loans for houses to people that they could not afford, thus bringing the economy to the ground. People began to cutback on spending and so did the investment of businesses, this caused many to loose jobs. Throughout the recession, more than 8 million americans became unemployed. Not only did the recession bring job loss, it had an extremely slow
There is no doubt that subprime lending was a major cause of the Recession. It was a tactic used by investment banks in order to get more money from unsuspecting homeowners. However, lenders found out that most of the people who were qualified to have a mortgage already had one. In turn, the lenders had to lower their credit criteria for people to take out a loan on a house. This is how the term subprime lending came to be in the financial world. As a result of subprime lending, the investors were able to make millions off of these mortgages. People who qualified for a subprime mortgage usually had a credit score below that of 620. To make the subprime mortgage deal more customer friendly, the lending banks decided to have the people who qualified for these mortgages didn’t have to have a down payment. Normally, the down payment would be as much as 20%, but this made it easier for people to get mortgages without having to worry about how much money they needed at the beginning of their purchase. “ Many American homeowners bought houses they could not afford,
It is widely known that logistics is the life blood of anything major. The logistics and transportation industry in the United
The main cause of this worldwide economic contraction was the credit crunch in 2007/2008. In the United States, mortgage lenders received incentives to sell mortgages, regardless of the income and credit score of the individual receiving the loan. This lead to an influx of loans being sold that were likely to be defaulted on at a later date. These subprime mortgages proved to be very profitable for the mortgage companies; thus, in order to continue selling these mortgages, they consolidated the debt and sold it to financial intermediaries. Therefore, the loans were no longer being financed through the traditional banking model.