BP oil spill

In 2010 the company BP had an oil spill which leaked into the Gulf of Mexico. This left a dark blanket over the seas floor, this was very evironmentally hazardous killing fish a other living species that live in the sea. The explosion that caused the spill killed 11 workers, and 17 were injured. On july 15 the leak was stopped by capping the gushing well head.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill

Mortgage Crisis

Mortgage is something that homeowners pay on a house. They pay down payment to a mortgage broker and that goes to a mortgage lender and the lender determines wat their mortgage is. And the lender sells or invests the mortgage money to an investment banker. They get alot of people and they make money from cutting the money and selling them to over people. Sometimes they get homeowners that default so in the end they get the down payment and the house, so they do it over again. giving houses to homeowners that'll default. The homeowners were getting home loans and weren't able to pay them back. Some even lied about what they made to get a house, it would default and the mortgage lenders would take their homes and... on to the next one, easy money, easy crisis start up.

http://www.crisisofcredit.com/
http://www.stock-market-investors.com/stock-investment-risk/the-subprime-mortgage-crisis-explained.html

Crisis of Credit

The crisis happened from the big banks and investors loaning money to homeowners that couldn't pay back. They would also have high interest rates, up to 10%. That caused the money loaned to be risky, the investors would sell to other investors to make money off of peoples loans. When it was time to re-up, people couldn't pay back so that would hit their creditt hard!! Soon enough it was happening to everyone because of the outrageous loans and investing.

http://www.crisisofcredit.com/

Credit

When asked who all gets affected by credit, 'everyone' tends to be the only answer. Everyone will end up having to get money from the Federal Reserve, but in different ways. The banks borrow directly from the Federal Reserve and homeowners borrow from the banks. The interest rate was lowered to 1% so banks don't want to borrow from them. They use homeowners mortgages to make more money becuase the interest rate is higher.

http://www.crisisofcredit.com/

CHINA

Lately China's economy has been rising at a steady rate of 10%. It is projected that there GDP will pass the US's GDP by 2040. They say some observers think that the American era is coming to an end. As China closes the gap between them and the US, some believe that this will cause tension, distrust, and conflict as the power transition occurs.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/63042/g-john-ikenberry/the-rise-of-china-and-the-future-of-the-west

Cash for Clunkers

Cash for clunkers was a program intended to provide economic incentives to create a more fuel efficient car. This program started on July 26th and ended on August 24th, the studies on this program shows that it did not hurt the car sales rates in the future months, this program had 130,000 cars traded to them. The result of that was getting the old low mileage cars off the road.


http://www.greencarreports.com/blog/1043380_clunkers-program-worked-didnt-hurt-car-sales-study-says

Gold Prices Skyrocket

The price of gold has hit a record high in the year 2010. The reasoning for this is because people are starting to loose faith in the value of the US dollar. So many people are investing in a stable resourse and one of the resourses is gold. What ever hardships the economy has gone through the gold has not lost its value.


http://ezinearticles.com/?Why-Have-the-Prices-of-Gold-Gone-So-High?&id=3445960