Brannon 1
The Economic Progression from 2000 to 2010
Carson Brannon
ECO 210
Final Paper
Brannon 2
2000 – 2010 Overview
• Jan 20, 2001. George Bush is sworn in as the 43rd president of the U.S
• Sep 11, 2001. Terrorists bomb the world trade center by flying two full passenger planes
into the towers.
• Nov 8, 2002. U.N passes the Iraq resolution, beginning of the search for weapons of mass
destruction
• Jan 3, 2004. NASA rover lands on Mars
• Jun 5, 2004. Ronald Reagan dies at age 93
• Nov 2, 2004. President Bush is re-elected
• Aug 29, 2005. Hurricane Katrina hits the Gulf Coast
• The great recession begins and lasts until 2009.
• Apr 16, 2007. Virginia Tech Massacre
• Nov 4, 2008. Obama wins the presidential election and becomes the first African
American President of the U.S.
• Apr 21, 2010. A BP oil rig explodes causing a major oil spill in the gulf coast
• Aug 31, 2010. U.S combat mission is called to a stop in Iraq
Brannon 3
GDP Graph from 2000 to 2010
The most notable feature about this graph is the obvious decline in 2008 and 2009. This time
was known as the “Great Recession”. This was a period in which the unemployment rate skyrocketed
because the housing market crashed completely. This was a time that did not allow people to find jobs
effectively and there was a lot of deflation. Millions of people lost their life’s savings and their jobs. It is
generally considered to be the longest period of economic decline since the Great Depression of the
1930s. It originated because of the subprime mortgage crisis and in Western Europe. The average
growth rate of the GDP in the time span was 2.18% increase.
Brannon 4
GDP 2000 – 2010
One major event that happened in the decade are the attack by terrorists on the world
trade center on September 11th, 2001. Terrorists hijacked multiple commercial airliners and flew
them into the north and south tower killing thousands of people and injuring thousands more.
Another plane was stopped by a passenger from flying into the White House, but the final plane
was flown into the Pentagon. This was an attack that was planned by the infamous Osama Bin
Laden. He was hunted down and eliminated by Seal Team Six, the most elite soldiers in
America. This had a negative effect on the economy. This had a negative effect because the
government spent so much money on defense that they went into the U.S. Debt Crisis.
Another major event that influenced the economy and GDP was the Housing Market
crash. This happened in 2008 and was devastating to the economy. The problem that caused the
crash was the greediness of the bankers. They wanted to extend profits to the max and were
lowering the down payments on houses and not checking customer credit scores to ensure the
sale and loan. The result of not checking the credit scores is that it does not allow you to see if
this person has a history of being able to pay back their loans on time or at all. This allowed
people that could not pay the money back to foreclose on their loans leaving the bank with
useless property that they could not sell because nobody then wanted to buy a house because of
this very problem. It was a never-ending cycle that was only broken when the government bailed
out the banks. This was one of the major effects that made the Great Recession so impactful.
Brannon 5
Unemployment Rate 2000 – 2010
This a graph showing the
unemployment rate from 2000 to
2010. You can see where there is a
massive jump in the unemployment
right at the start of 2008. At the start,
the unemployment goes up but starts
to go way down. This was because
there was nothing bad happening and
