I have to do a project on the 80's in the US History class and I was chosen to do a report on the economic news from the 80's. Now I am a bit clueless as to where to begin with this, let alone know what economic news is (I am a junior in high school). If someone could please help me out with this I would be extremely greatful

heather

now if i was in highschool and had an important paper that was due, i would probably stay home and watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off (this is an 80's forum) :-)

but seriously, in 1980 Ronald Reagan (a republican) became president with a conservative economic philosophy of cutting taxes (mostly for the wealthy and loopholes for large corporations). his philosophy was that these tax cuts would eventually "trickle down" to the avarage working-class person. He also spent large amounts of money building up the military against a percieved soviet threat. the United States borrowed money and became heavily burdened in debt because of this. because Reagan was re-elected for a second four year term in 1984, he was able to further imbed his economic philosophies into law, which in effect split the divide between the rich and the poor; which had the effect of reducing the size of the middle class. more people were either becomming poor or rich.

If you want to know more about Reagan, check out Lou Cannon's book titled "Ronald Reagan, The Role of a Lifetime". You can look in the index for specific information on economic policy during the 1980's.

And here is some general economic principles that you might want to keep in mind as you do your research. Companies want to make profits, so they want to sell their products at the highest prices the market will tolerate for thier inventory. In other words, a ceo or board of directors might be thinking the following: at what price (x) can we sell 100,000 (y) of a specific product. they might have research that says at $100 they might be able to sell 85,000 (the demand for a product at one hundred dollars), but at $90 they would be able to sell 105,000 (the demand for the product at nintey dollars). Okay, now that you have that, here is how government policies effect economics. If the government sets the intrest rate slightly higher than what it is then more people would rather save money than spend it, thus effecting the demand for a product (the interest rate is the rate of return the government pays for deposits, say $3 dollars per year for every $100). So in the above example, if the interest rate is 3% and we use the $90 example with 105,000 units and the government raises the interest rate to 3.2%, then at $90 dollars only 98,000 people would be willing to buy the product, because the other 7,000 are now saving it with the higher interest rate. So everytime you here about the Federal Reserve on television or about Alan Greenspan (the chairman of the Reserve), now you know what they are talking about. Here is a second way that government influences the economy. Say that in the above example at $100 there were 85,000 people willing to buy. Now government raises minimum wage from $3.50 an hour to 3.95 an hour. more people will have more money, so the demand at $100 might go from 85,000 to 87,000.

anyways, if you want to know more, post questions and i will try and help. good luck with your paper, and remember, there is always Ferris.

: I have to do a project on the 80's in the US
: History class and I was chosen to do a
: report on the economic news from the 80's.
: Now I am a bit clueless as to where to begin
: with this, let alone know what economic news
: is (I am a junior in high school). If
: someone could please help me out with this I
: would be extremely greatful

: heather