Civil Rights Movement and American Paradox
Introduction
In 1960s, Republican overwhelmingly supported the Civil Right Movement and believed the idea from constitution “all men are created equal” and Northern Democrats supported the cause too. The Southern Democrats were “conservative” and were against the Civil Right Movement and they wanted segregation to stay within their society. They believed blacks being treated as “separate” were enough in itself.
Some examples of American Paradox to Civil Rights Movement:
Ku Klux Klan: Ku Klux Klan used to be very violent with the Blacks and they were against Blacks being treated as “Equals”. They used to do their best to ensure Blacks didn’t manage to vote and in some cases even murdered them.
Ruby Bridges: Ruby Bridges was the first black student who joined an all-white school and parents of white students refused to send their children to school as they were against the movement.
Freedom Rides: People both Whites and Blacks who used to participate in Freedom Rides were beaten by iron pipes and fists and some were even lit on fire. Hooligans against the civil rights movement used to attack these people who rode the buses for helping in desegregating buses.
Economic Crisis
The reason behind this crisis was lack of supervision from government, poor financial choices by consumers and Greedy decisions by Wall Street people. According to this video the decisions made by government which led to the economic crisis were:
Asset Backed Securities and Securitization
Building securities by bundling of loan products and bad mortgages which large investment companies like Bear Stearns sold as securities to interested investors in open market to arrange additional capital for purchase of additional loans from banks.
This tuned out to be wrong decision as these mortgages which were sold, resold and bundled were destined for default at some point. As banks received no payments for the loans they gave and the value of investment firms started to plummet.
Credit Default Swaps
Banks obtained form of insurance for assets on their books in a system called Credit Default Swaps. To specify, banks made payments on part of companies which were willing to sell credit default swaps to them. Many firms made millions of dollars for more than a decade which led to this crisis.
This was another decision based on greed on Wall Street as many companies offered insurance for assets and mortgages held by banks. The default risk was transferred to the company which would sell the insurance. Profits of Wall Street skyrocketed and Richard Fuld, CEO of Lehman Brothers earned more than $485 million between term 2000-2008.
Governmental Regulation
The Fed and Securities exchange commission chose to avoid the possible collapse of economy as the profits kept soaring and no one foresee the collapse of 2008. Many regulators and financial lenders were serving on the boards of investment firms like Hank Paulson made more $500,000 while serving in Goldman Sachs board before he became the Treasury Secretary.
Most of these decisions served as cyanide for the economy and led to the Economic crisis of 2008. Had this been foreseen probably the world would not have faced the turmoil.
Obamacare
The primary reason behind the May 2009 articulation was ensuring that the process of healthcare delivery was transparent and open in eyes for every party involved. Accomplishment of the target is very much debated till date. Still, the meeting was held to have a clearer picture of the current scenario with an open forum where discussions over the stands of all stakeholders from healthcare industry was heard and their interests were to be discussed to understand their standing on future. The administration wanted to learn from past mistakes by discussing all issues in open forums involving every stakeholder involved which turned out to be a proactive approach. They were seeking to solve this issue by sorting problems out with open dialogues which were part of their plans.
In 2008, Candidate Obama promised reduction in healthcare costs in long-term to help individuals, businesses and the government. He claimed he will protect American families from debt and bankruptcy in choosing their medical plans. The administration also pledged they will work for blocking future legislation in health care which will allow governments negotiating any price-settings of drugs.
After that, Obama acknowledged that a deal was made with drug companies for blocking any move in Congress for obtaining cost saving above $80 billion agreed with the pharmaceutical lobby. The deal is added evidence needed to understand that the corporate guns will be calling the shots in this overhaul of healthcare. Public affirmations from the White House that any added cost savings will be extracted from drug makers is confirmation of any healthcare plan signed by Obama being class-based and cut-rate system which will ration the medical care for common Americans leaving the income and profits of pharmaceutical companies intact.
