San Antonio College Library

In 1929 following the stock market bottoming out, Simon Kuznets led an investigative study resulting in the first national data collection of Gross National Product (GNP). Able to assess the overall production to consumption ratio of the U.S., Franklin Roosevelt entered World War II without jeopardizing the basic needs of his citizens. Although GNP was changed to GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in 1991, it still didn't account for all aspects of economic...

In 1890, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act broke up the monopoly that John D. Rockefeller and his company, Standard Oil, had on the oil industry. In 1914, the federal government was sold on the concept of universal telephone service provided by Ma Bell, a monopoly that was ended by the development of a new technology. In 1998, the U.S. government filed a suit against the world's largest software company, Microsoft, for participating in anti-competitive practices....

In 1937 the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a government-owned utility company, was created to electrify rural communities and control flooding. 1965 marked the first U.S. attempt at national health insurance in the passage of Medicare and Medicaid. In response to 9/11, the U.S. Transportation and Security Administration replaced private security firms with federal employees. A perfectly competitive market does not always provide the right amount...

Faced with dwindling resources, Congress fiercely debated whether to preserve 100 million acres of Alaskan land as a national park, or open the land for mineral exploration. World War II saw an unprecedented period of economic growth. The need to mobilize resources overseas quickly was palpable. In the 1970s U.S. textile industries risked competitive advantage in increasingly active Asian markets by investing more in the health of their workers. In...

Between 1982 and 1985, the Fed tightened the money supply to combat inflation, despite rising unemployment. Also in the 1980s, U.S. citizens began to feel the debilitating effects foreign trade would have on job loss. Paul Volker's monetary policy in the mid-1980s was designed to quell inflation once and for all. However, in the first decade of the 21st century, when unemployment skyrocketed and the banking system and major corporations needed a bailout...

Farmers lured into producing massive food surpluses for WWI could no longer profit when the war ended and demand plummeted. After 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to improve the conditions of farmers via policies in his New Deal plan. Government subsidies later allowed for corporate ownership of a majority of farmers. The Freedom to Farm Bill of 1996 gave farmers a little more maneuverability, but for the most part farmers are still held...

During WWII, our national debt had more than quadrupled, so government encouraged citizens to buy war bonds and federal stamps to pay some of it off. In 1960, President Eisenhower achieved a surplus and reduced the debt, a feat not repeated until the 1990s. But a large tax cut in 2001, three wars, a down market and huge entitlement costs pushed the deficit and the national debt to an alarming new height that forced a fierce confrontation between Congressional...

In preparation for WWII, the Roosevelt administration instituted wage price and price controls to curb inflation and better focus production on war materials. When the Nixon administration set up price controls for beef, farmers attempted to stifle the supply by withholding animals from the markets. Following WWII, rent controls established to aid returning war veterans cut into landlord profits and consequently led some to abandon properties. These...

In the 1970s, businesses struggled with rising energy costs, newly imposed environmental regulations, and inflation that contributed to the slowing of productivity. By 1980, a new group of economists called "supply-siders" were calling for government deregulation to spur productivity, amidst great objections from Democrats and some economic experts. Some thought that productivity was at an end, but government-supported technological innovation spurred...

1970s America saw a new kind of inflation, based on supply and not demand: "stagflation," caused by Arab oil embargoes and worldwide crop failures. In 1973 President Ford and Fed Chairman Arthur Burns tried to control inflation by choking the money supply. They failed. In the 1990s the U.S. had three ways to ease inflation: Technological innovation, market globalization, and expenditure restraint. Demand management policies fight cost-push inflation...