Evolution Part 3

Economically our world has turned upside down. In September 2008 Americans witnessed a series of events that would lead to the financial crisis that we are still suffering from in 2010. A combination of the housing bubble, predatory lending, cds (credit default swaps) and cdos (collateralized debt obligations) contributed to the economic downturn. We are still in a state of recession in April 2010 and our unemployment rates are higher than they were during the Great Depression. In a nutshell greed, excess, and a lack of moral values led to this economic meltdown which had a trcikle down effect on the average consumer.

Politically our world has turned upside down as we have our first black president (bi-racial) to be exact. I thought I would never live to see the day. Barack Obama was elected to be president in November 2008. He was inaugurated in January 2009; it was a monumental event which I was fortunate enough to see. Unfortunately he inherited the country in a really bad shape particularly in the economy. He was received with skepticism from the Republican side but the majority of the American public was in favor of Barack Obama being president of the United States. One of his goals as president was to achieve bipartisanship in congress and hoped to work across party lines. Some people criticize the bail out of AIG and the burdening of the tax payer with this debt. This is one of the most difficult decisions Obama had to make early on in his presidency. The success he has achieved thus far has been in passing the health care bill. This was a long and hard fought win for the democrats and citizens of this country in general. Through the health care reform there will be more than 30 million Americans insured, pre-existing conditions will be removed from health insurance policies, adults under the age of 26 will still be covered under their parents' insurance until they are able to establish economic stability, and there will be stronger focus on preventative care. The changes that will happen as a result of health care reform in the next couple of years should be interesting.

Furthermore in 9/11/2001 a national catastrophe happened. The twin towers in the Lower Manhattan (known as the world trade center) were hit by the two planes. Other government buildings were attacked by planes but the damage was minimal. Both planes were said to have been operated by terrorists from the terrorist group Al Queda. But suspiciously so these "terrorists" took flying courses on American ground. This horrific event claimed close to 3000 lives. Everybody has their own views on the attack on 9-11. some say it was a conspiracy by the government to get us to believe that the terrorists were the enemies others believe that terrorists really did strike the twin towers. Well at any rate in the year 2003 the united States declared war on Iraq with suspicion that Iraq was responsible for the terrorist attack and that they had weapons of mass destruction. The ultimate goal was to find Sadam Hussein, capture the terrorists along and find weapons of mass destruction so they can achieve peace. Well it didn't exactly work out that way. Now the government pulled all of our troops out of Iraq to have them deployed to Afghanistan and to complete a counter terrorist mission there. Our country is now in 11 trillion dollars of debt because of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. We owe China approximately 2.5 trillion dollars. This is the biggest and longest war our country has seen since Vietnam and so far 5000 soldiers have been killed. this has been an unfortunate event in the past 10 years.