imported>Chunbum Park |
imported>John Stephenson |
| (205 intermediate revisions by 8 users not shown) |
| Line 1: |
Line 1: |
| In their 2010 report, the Economic Advisors to the President referred the recent economic downturn as the '''[[Great Recession]]''', suggesting a parallel with the Great Depression of the 1930s. Like the Great Depression - and unlike other recessions - it had a simultaneous impact on most of the world's economies. But in other respects it was unique. There had been no precedent for such extensive damage to the world's financial system, nor for the coordinated measures that were taken to avert what was feared to be its imminent collapse.
| | {{:{{FeaturedArticleTitle}}}} |
| | | <small> |
| Although, according to the generally accepted definition of the term, the recession ended in most countries when economic growth resumed during 2009, its damaging effects upon the major economies are expected to persist beyond 2011, and its ultimate cost may amount to as much as a whole year's ouput of every country in the world.
| | ==Footnotes== |
| | | {{reflist|2}} |
| The Great Recession has prompted a re-examination of beliefs concerning the functioning of markets comparable to that which followed the Great Depression.
| | </small> |
| | |
| =====Introduction===== | |
| Explanations of the causes of the recession and accounts of contemporary debates concerning policy responses are available in the articles on the subprime mortgage crisis, the crash of 2008 and the recession of 2009, together with timelines linked to contemporary reports.
| |
| | |
| =====Overview=====
| |
| During the 1980s there was a widespread re-appraisal of the regulations that had been introduced in response to the financial instability that developed during the Great Depression. A consensus had already emerged that many regulations were economically harmful, as a result of which programmes of deregulation had been adopted. The reappraisal concluded that the financial regulations of the 1930s had become unnecessary because recently-developed monetary policy could be used to counter any further signs of instability. Ongoing programmes of banking deregulation that had prevented investment banks from engaging in branch banking, insurance or mortgage lending were dropped, and reserve requirements were relaxed or removed.
| |
| | |
| After the mid-1980s came a twenty-year period that has been termed the great moderation, during which recessions had been less frequent and less severe than in previous periods, and during which there been a great deal of successful financial innovation.
| |
| | |
| In the United States, that period was characterised by massive capital inflows and the large-scale availability of credit to households, and by 2007 personal savings rates dropped to 2 per cent of disposable income from their previous average of 9 per cent and there was a house price boom that has since been categorised as a bubble.
| |
| The bursting of that bubble in 2007, and the downgrading by the credit rating agencies of large numbers of internationally-held financial assets created what came to be known as the subprime mortgage crisis, which led, in turn, to the financial crash of 2008 and the failure of several of the world's largest banks. The loss of investors' confidence caused by failure of the ''Lehman Brothers'' investment bank in September 2008, resulted in a credit crunch. The resulting fall in spending struck the major economies at a time when they were already suffering from the impact of a supply shock in which a surge in commodity prices was causing households to reduce their spending. Economic forecasters had been expecting a mild downturn: what actually happened was the global slump in ecomomic activity that has come to be known as the Great Recession.
| |
| | |
| Although the trigger that set the recession off had been the malfunction of a part of the United States housing market, it soon emerged that a more fundamental problem had been the fact that the financial innovations that had been richly rewarding traders in the world's financial markets, had also been threatening their collective survival. The crucial nature of that threat for the stability of the world economy arose from the fact that it had become dependent upon the services of a well-functioning international financial system.
| |
| ''[[Great Recession|.... (read more)]]''
| |
| {|align="center" cellpadding="5" style="background:lightgray; width:60%; border: 1px solid #aaa; margin:10px; font-size: 92%;" | |
| | Supplements to this article include an annotated[[Great Recession/Timelines|''' chronology ''']] of the main events of the recession; and accounts of the [[Great Recession/Addendum| '''regional impact''']] of the recession.
| |
| |}
| |
Latest revision as of 10:19, 11 September 2020
The Irvin pin. The eyes have always been red, but there are
urban legends about the meanings of other colors.
A pin from another company, possibly Switlik or Standard Parachute. This style is common in catalogs and auctions of military memorabilia.
The Caterpillar Club is an informal association of people who have successfully used a parachute to bail out of a disabled aircraft. After authentication by the parachute maker, applicants receive a membership certificate and a distinctive lapel pin.
History
Before April 28, 1919 there was no way for a pilot to jump out of a plane and then to deploy a parachute. Parachutes were stored in a canister attached to the aircraft, and if the plane was spinning, the parachute could not deploy. Film industry stuntman Leslie Irvin developed a parachute that the pilot could deploy at will from a back pack using a ripcord. He joined the Army Air Corps parachute research team, and in April 1919 he successfully tested his design, though he broke his ankle during the test. Irvin was the first person to make a premeditated free fall jump from an airplane. He went on to form the Irving Airchute Company, which became a large supplier of parachutes. (A clerical error resulted in the addition of the "g" to Irvin and this was left in place until 1970, when the company was unified under the title Irvin Industries Incorporated.) The Irvin brand is now a part of Airborne Systems, a company with operations in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K.[1].
An early brochure [2] of the Irvin Parachute Company credits William O'Connor 24 August 1920 at McCook Field near Dayton, Ohio as the first person to be saved by an Irvin parachute, but this feat was unrecognised. On 20 October 1922 Lieutenant Harold R. Harris, chief of the McCook Field Flying Station, jumped from a disabled Loening W-2A monoplane fighter. Shortly after, two reporters from the Dayton Herald, realising that there would be more jumps in future, suggested that a club should be formed. 'Caterpillar Club' was suggested because the parachute canopy was made of silk, and because caterpillars have to climb out of their cocoons and fly away. Harris became the first member, and from that time forward any person who jumped from a disabled aircraft with a parachute became a member of the Caterpillar Club. Other famous members include General James Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh and (retired) astronaut John Glenn.
In 1922 Leslie Irvin agreed to give a gold pin to every person whose life was saved by one of his parachutes. By 1945 the number of members with the Irvin pins had grown to over 34,000. In addition to the Irvin Air Chute Company and its successors, other parachute manufacturers have also issued caterpillar pins for successful jumps. Irvin/Irving's successor, Airborne Systems Canada, still provides pins to people who made their jump long ago and are just now applying for membership. Another of these is Switlik Parachute Company, which though it no longer makes parachutes, still issues pins.
