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Crash Course 47 - The Obama Years

Added Apr 27, 2017 •

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Period 9 - The Obama Years

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hi I'm John Green this is Crash Course US history  end of History stands at the history never end but whatever we from the resident Disney so we aren't going to cover the astonishing results of the 2016 presidential election Sir John Green here to tell you that it is stunning turn of events the 2020 presidential election will be won by Harry Styles I know that he's English and under 35 but we're going to change the Constitution to make pausable because that's how much we love Harry Styles in 2020 so when we last met the George W Bush's approval rating was dropping to the lowest number in president of the United States approval rating history in what turned out to be the second worst economic crisis in the past hundred and fifty years in crisis that remains unnamed because we're kind of still in it but I'd like to propose a couple names the Wall Street Boozle the financial fartstorm however knowing historians they will inevitably call it like the major recession of 2008 to 2012 what's the financial fart storm to begin in late 2008 what was a mixture of public and private activities that tilted toward short-term economic thinking speculation in Erie call ansible spending indeed an interest rates stayed with encourage people to buy houses that they could not afford billions of Americans including crash course u.s. history that increase rapidly and forever so that when you were unable to make payments just sell it pay off the mortgage and make a tidy profit it turns out this was a pyramid scheme and my friends I was not at the top of the pyramid house with a so-called ninja Von which sadly did not involve Mutant Ninja Turtles or pizza Ninja stands for no income no job and no assets turn this situation can't borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars but in the early 2000s these locals were given the benign sounding designation subprime play Big Wall Street Banks financing huge deals with regular people were doing it like me go with the interest on government treasury bills if that dimly 0 investors had to look elsewhere from better returns which led to the idea of issuing Securities these Bond like that were backed by mortgaging was that the interest people paid on their mortgages would Supply the underlying value of the security the way that like tax revenues are the sore if the value of a Government Bond be a minority of people who'd fail to pay off their securitized mortgages turns out that if you haven't paid any money to own your house you don't deal that invested in it to other even more reasons why do Securities were terrible ideas but the important thing is that when the mortgage is turned bad these Securities became toxic assets is to be the people who held them suddenly didn't know what they were worth if anything and Banks overreacted to this on DS Banks like to Dubai not lending out any money and that's called a credit freeze which is very bad so that's how a housing bubble turned into a full-fledged Financial let's go to the bank stop lending business can't function so the stock market collapsed with the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping from above 14000 round 8000 which wiped out 7 trillion dollars of shareholder wealth and a majority of Americans had money invested in the stock market much of it in the form of retire will it being harder to borrow money Americans finally cut back on their spending which resulted in many businesses failing and by the end of 2008 2.5 million jobs many of which were in manufacturing and construction because male-dominated led to another change by mid-2009 more women than men held paying job what's for the first time in American history in the first three months of 2009 are GDP dropped 6% and world trade cratered and that led to unemployment misery worldwide the failure of the Investment Bank Lehman Brothers in September just two months before the presidential election play to stop the damage by getting Congress to pass the troubled asset relief program or tarp which was basically a 700 billion dollar bailout for banks like Citigroup and Bank of America Insurance please like and mortgage insurers like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac we necessary to stop a complete failure of the financial system but they were very unpopular most of the banks that received a rescue from the taxpayers didn't help the homeowners facing foreclosure and despite receiving millions of federal dollars AIG famously continue to pay huge bonuses to its top executives Bush years looked a lot like the end of the Hoover years after a decade of Americans spending more money than they had government taking a backseat to business interests and DeRay relation of Industries going hand-in-hand with increasing corruption Barack Obama with face with America's biggest economic challenge since the Great Depression mama who 50 years before his election couldn't have sat in the front of a bus in Alabama fair enough but we do make some progress now and again and he represented the young people in my can you harness the power of social media to communicate with supporters and get out the vote and also raised tons of money on the cover of Us Weekly he appeared to break Republican solid hold on the south even Virginia and North Carolina and Florida and his supporters represented a coalition of African Americans Spandex and white liberals and especially young people  rules here are simple he said for the final time I'll tell you one thing that's going to change your crash course no more shock pens I guess the author the mystery document if I'm wrong I get shocked right let's see what we got here today fur everywhere we look there is work to be done the state of our economy calls for Action bold and Swift and we will act not only to create new jobs but tool a new condition for growth we will build the roads and bridges the electric grids in digital lines that feed our Commerce and bind us together will restore science to its right place and wheeled Technologies wonders to raise Healthcare quality and to lower its cost we will harness the sun in the winds in the soil to fuel our cars and on our factories and we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age all this we can do all this we will do speaking of things that we will do I will get this right it's Barack Obama's first inaugural football no more shocks to getting shocked part of my play come to an end hopefully in Crash Course literature when I get things right I'll get a puppy and when I get things wrong I'll get a rainbow fan says that my only reward is not being punished the culture of Washington he would end partisan squabbling sorry I couldn't even get through based on diplomacy he wanted to reduce an equality and increase access to healthcare you wanted to curve greed and irresponsibility that it helped bring on the economic crisis and turn it to end the Bush tax cuts he also wanted to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and as global warming not bad well I would say not great either as in his verbal support for the turn that overthrew Hosni Mubarak in Egypt women to Sue when they systemically underpaid and he also reversed an earlier executive order that limited women's Reproductive Rights and speaking of women he appointed two of them to the Supreme Court Elena Kagan and Sonia Soto lower the Court's first Hispanic member Stan as part of a longer-term plan to end the war there which has sort of worked he also authorized the successful military operation that killed Osama Bin Laden on May 2nd 2002 I was in Amsterdam at the time in the Dutch media came to my house to ask me how Americans felt about this and I said good on the other hand Obama has been criticized internationally for backing off promise to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and he has largely followed the bush administration's policies with the war on terror is to kill suspected militants around the world on the left and the right appear to support the use of drones and also Obama also kept in place Bush's executive power in fact he expanded it in some ways with the nsa's prism program what about that Financial Obama was fortunate to have a credit Congress for his first term in office so he can push through a lot of legislation this included a sweeping stimulus package with nearly 800 billion dollars in new spending most of it on infrastructure that was signed into law on February 17th 2009 just 28 days into Obama's presidency is more than the government had spent on a package of programs ever like more than the Great Society more than the New Deal did it work well it depends on who you ask him 9 studies 6 lb of the stimulus did have a positive effect on growth and employment can jobs but it also increase the deficit quite a bit so we were look on America's current 7% unemployment rate as evidence that the stimulus is Keynesian policy should have gone for walk conservative say that the stimulus exploded the federal deficit and debt your policy proposal the Affordable Care Act better known as Obamacare add States into the ranks of countries with universal healthcare listed includes every industrialized Nation on Earth your aims to reduce the number of Americans without health insurance by making it easier and less expensive for the uninsured to buy it privately it's not a government insurance plan but the government will those who can't afford insurance at least thinks that it's going to be a wash if you don't have insurance from your employer you must or else you have to pay penalty in 2012 the core of the law was upheld by the Supreme Court when they ruled that this was a constitutional use of the government's taxing power Obama's successive ending part is Impala not one Congressional Republicans voted for Obamacare and many used it to campaign against Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections and while the success of the Affordable Care Act won't be able to determine for many years there was a huge backlash against both Obama and his policies on Facebook and Twitter and also the Mysterious World of not the internet ounces was the Tea Party a reference to the Boston Tea Party and an acronym for taxed enough already for the record I just want to say now than they have been at any point in the last hundred years but the Tea Party is also very concerned deficits are out of control in government spending is going to ruin 80 or so new tea party Congress people the Republicans took control of the house in 2010 and John it's pronounced Boehner became the Speaker of the House put their mandate to cut taxes and reduce spending very seriously and that made it difficult for Boehner to compromise with the Obama Administration over in the Senate Democrats eldest women because of the filibuster needed 60 votes to do anything which made them look very dysfunctional in fact the 111th Congress was one of the least productive in American history Obama was elected president in 2012 the Republicans continue to control the house the Democrats continued episode majority in the Senate and now America is facing something of a political unwillingness to compromise has precipitated a series of many fiscal crises over things like the budget and raising the debt ceiling things that Congress used to be able to hash turn on back when their business was governing not ideal on gical rigidity in while the economy has slowly added jobs and looks halfway decent at the moment mostly because Arab look so bad yay I qualified questioning yay is about the last word I have to say on American history see you today may seem new but if you look at American history you realize that this has been going on for a long time the Tea Party is right that the founding fathers would be astonished by the extent of the American government in the extent to which its involved in the lives of America and progressives are right the people around the world have benefited from government investment in healthcare and infrastructure and rotation we have to ask ourselves again what does freedom really mean can you be free when you live in poverty or when you're one injury away from bankruptcy can you be free when the you can go to a secret Court to read your text message we know you can't be free if you're dead so is the government's job to protect you not only by having a standing army but also by making you wear your seatbelt skills ultimately ideological questions but we have to Grapple with them in a real practical way and the great story of American governance is compromised also often the tragedy of American government says when the Constitutional Convention compromised over whether African-American people were people so if you've learned anything this year I hope it's been that the American story that we singer ourselves in now isn't entirely knob and I think we have much to learn from those who came before us both from their successes and from there many many failures search for watching crash course u.s. history next we will be discussing literature your first reading assignment The Odyssey it's a great book I promise it seems it you're going to like it weekend for watching I'll see you then and it exists because of your continuing support quick to go voluntarily subscribe to crash course and keep this show piano roll it thank you so much everyone was watching supported the show the last two years I'm wearing the same shirt that for the first episode of crash course world history to celebrate two successful years of teaching history one of the great joys of my life and I'm so grateful did everyone who's watched it you can find a full list of your reading for crash course literature in the dude we do thank you again for watching this be saying my hometown's don't forget to be awesome

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Crash Course 47 - The Obama Years

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