Economics: Decades Test

Study guide for the decades test

Characteristics of the Free Banking Era

1. Regulated by States
2. Produced their own currency
3. Only needed enough capital to open a bank

Tariff

Tax on imports

Revenue

“income” for a government or business

Spanish American War: date & territories taken

1898, Guam, Philippines, Puerto Rico

Federal Revenue source before the creation of income tax

Tariffs

Commercial Banks

Meet the banking needs of private individuals

* Checkings, savings, loans, credit

Federal Reserve Banks

Meet the needs of other banks aka Central Bank, created in 1913

* Regulates the economy

Investment Banks

Sell securities on Wall St./NYSE

Taylorism

Science of production efficiency

Vertical Integration

Owning multiple steps of the production & supply chain process

Robber Barons vs. Captains of Industry

Robber Barons became wealthy through labor repression & monopolistic tactics. Captains of industry became wealthy through innovation & creation of good jobs.

Top industries between 1890 & 1910

Mining, steel, railroads, oil

Purpose of the narrative “White Man’s Burden”

To justify colonialism during the age of imperialism

Events leading to the official reasons for going to war: Spanish American War, WWI, WWII

Sinking of:


1. Maine
2. The Lusitania
3. The fleet at Pearl Harbor

Financial impact of WWI on the US during the 1920’s

The flood of money coming in from European war debts inflated the stock market, causing the bubble & crash of 1929

Creation of the federal Reserve Bank & federal income tax date

1913

FDIC

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation restored faith in banks after the 1929 crash by guaranteeing deposits up to an amount

Glass Steagall Act

Created a wall btwn investment & consumer banks, forbidding consumer banks from speculating w/ customer deposits

SEC

Securities Exchange Commission regulates & polices the exchange of Securities on Wall Street

Social Security Act

Provided retirement income & support for widows/children

New Deal

1930’s government plan to regulate Wall St., provide employment & restore the economy

Purposes of dropping two atomic bombs on Japan

Opportunity to test a uranium & plutonium bomb

Date & Outcomes of Bretton Woods Conference

1944 - Foreign currency

United Nations: date created

Created after WWII

* Oct 24, 1945

Think Tanks

Private organizations of influential people who attempt to get congress/gov implemtn their agendas

1st two think tanks

Council on Foreign Relations & Chatham House

Methods by which US maintained world dominance after WWII

Covert operations and economic dominance

The warnings in President Eisenhower’s farewell address

Beware the Military Industrial complex - it may subvert democracy & keep us at war continually for profit

CIA covert operations in the 1950’s

Guatemala & Iran

The Great Society

Intended to complete the New Deal by eradicating poverty & improving health, education & civil rights

The actions of the FBI regarding the growth of the Civil Rights movements in the 1960’s

Opposed it - hunted them down as communists

The relationship between the Great Society & the Vietnam War

Vietnam War drained money from the goals of the Great Society

President who changed the name of the presidential home to The White House

Teddy Roosevelt

Similarities btwn the 1930’s and the 1960’s

Both decades had democratic governments & popular movements to regulate/control the powerful and help the majority of people

What is the message behind this political cartoon?

The Federal Reserve will control the President, Congress, small banks, farms, and industry, channeling the nation’s wealth into Wall St.