The Dot Com Bubble and the Great Recession
The 1990s was a period of economic growth. Aided by Bill Clinton's post-inflation economic policy, interest rates were considerably low. This lead to a mass proliferation of startup companies, which did business almost exclusively on the internet, or dot com companies. Many of these companies had goals that were far too ambitious, but investors, drawn in by the novelty of the dot com company, put their faith in these goals. This created a stock market bubble, or a massive rise in share prices for these dot com companies, with no real backing. Naturally, when these companies failed to meet their goals, the bubble burst, and stock prices plunged. Sweat shows the effect of the burst bubble on the stock market, in their little scene builders, showing how the DOW falls " a record 617-point drop.. after the tech bubble bursts". It is no surprise, that this is precedes the chapter with the greatest economic turmoil, wherein Tracey realizes that Oscar and other immigrants are slowly taking jobs. It is no surprise that Nottage seeks to tackle the major economic conflict in the story, as the country goes through its own major economic conflict at the time.
The Recession of 2008, was caused by several economic failures, such as a series of bad mortgages, creating a housing bubble, and failures in economic regulation, after the repealing of the Glass Steagall Act. It would be an understatement to say that many people lost their jobs, their homes, and their financial assets. In Sweat, we can see the effect of the bubble, as the story returns to the present and we find that "Tracey is strung out", and that Cynthia "got behind", on her loans. As was the case with several Americans, the bad mortgages probably forced them to sell their houses, and relocate to an apartment, the way Cynthia did.
These 2 periods of market decline, were both caused by misplaced confidence and certain failures on the part of investors. However, it is clear that the Great Recession had a greater impact on the people of America, as evidenced by Sweat, and what actually happens to the characters.
I liked how you connected the information of the bubble burst to how Sweat directly showed the impacts of the burst and I also agree with you that The Great Recession had a greater impact on America compared to the bubble burst.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you talked about two different periods of economic decline instead of just focusing on NAFTA, or one event in particular. The graph also helped to visualize the economic collapse.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you connected historical events that weren't covered in depth in Sweat and then connected them with Sweat. I also liked how you added a graph to help visualize the economy at the time.
ReplyDeleteI like how you connected what was happening economically in the stock market and the "tech bubble" to what was happening during the scenes. It really shows just how much the stock market and the Dow Jones Industrial Average / The DOW affected the outcomes of the story.
ReplyDeleteI like how you expanded on two topics which were very vaguely talked about in Sweat and tied them to the book instead of talking about obvious topics like NAFTA.
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