business

Business & Economics

-In the late 1980's, the economy was in need of some repair, the government cut back on federal regulations, and Americans were paying more for healthcare than any other nation. 30 million Americans did not even have healthcare. -After Clinton took over Bush's presidency in the early 1990's, the economy took a positive turn. Clinton reversed cuts to publics services such as schools, bridges, etc. in order to stimulate the economy and repair the infrastructure, but Republicans blocked the simulus portion of the bill. In 1992 the unemployment rate was about eight percent. -During the early 1990's and through the 90's, the economy was flourishing and jobs were plentiful -Spending was high due to the high volume of jobs in the mid to late 90's -Business spending on technology jumped in the 1990's to 45% of spending, versus the 3% that was previously spent on technology in the 1960's -With the development of the internet through the 1990's, bussiness could not stay in contact with clients and co-workers without having to be in a specific location to do so -The internet not only allowed an expansion of business, but it allowed business transactions to take place over a wider area and increased international trading -Business-to-business sales went from $40 billion in 1998 to approximately $1.1 trillion in 2007 -Then, on September 11, 2001, the World Trade Centers were attacked by terrorist forces and as a result, people became scared -After September 11th, people were scared and travel stopped in response to security threats. This resulted in a low point for the travel related industries, such as airlines. -Also, after this time, personal spending decreased, but federal spending increased to pay for the costs of the War on Terror that came as a result of September 11th and other problems with the Middle East -As Bush became President and the war was expanded, the economy got worse and many people started loosing their jobs -After several years of declining economic status, the country came into a recession and unemployment rates reached their highest rate since the Great Depression -With unemployment rates high and a very large percentage of the country being unemployed, spending decreased drastically, bringing the country deeper into a recession -As spending on new items decreased, the only industries that stayed relatively stable were service industries, as many people started fixing things they already had, instead of replacing things -However, even service industries have been affected by the recession and economy. First off, because gas prices are so high, service industries who have trucks/vans to get from job-site to job-site have been loosing a large portion of their profits on the costs of transporation -Also, industries such as the HVAC industry, who deal with both service and installation of new products, are reeping the benefits of the increase in spending on reapir/service, but are suffering from the lack of spending on new products/installation. However, in the past two years, spending on new products has been slowly increasing, with some families investing in new products; most of those who are doing so are investing in products that are more efficent, cheaper to operate, in order to save money -Basically, everyone is trying to save as much money as possible and people who were not frugle during the 90's became very frugle to respond to the world today -Because certian industries were more affected by the recession than others, the distribution of wealth was greatly affected, with the money being concentrated to a small group of people -Airline travel eventually was restored, however, at a cost. First off, the prices of airline travel increased with the need for higher level of security and more security staff. -However, recently, new body-scanning techniques have negatively affected airline travel and have caused people to feel uncomfortable traveling, seeking better alternatives -Since the 1990's, fuel prices have also sky-rocketed -As a result of problems in the Middle East affecting trade with some of the most oil-rich countries, America's supply of oil has diminished and this problem only increased with the loss of a large amount of oil during the recent BP Oil spill -Because oil supply is low and oil demand is high, fuel prices, both in terms of gas for transportation and oil for heat, are at an all-time high, reaching approximately $4.00 per gallon -Because gas prices are so high, many people are limiting the travel they do and as a result are not stimulating the economy as much as it should be -The lack of travel due to high fuel prices has affected many industries, including the automotive inudistires and their counterparts, such as tire companies and autoparts manufacturers