8G History Lesson 50 Assignment

In this assignment, I will be summarizing the life and career of our 5th president, James Monroe.

James Monroe was born on April 28, 1758. His father, Spence Monroe, and his mother, Elizabeth Monroe owned 600 acres in rural Virginia. He started going to William and Mary College, but he left in 1776 to fight in the Revolutionary war as a lieutenant. He was one of the men who crossed the Delaware River with Washington. He advanced through the ranks to major, but later resigned his commission.

Monroe then started studying law with Thomas Jefferson. He was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates. His law career continued, as he served in congress from 1783 to 1786. He then retired and was elected to the senate in 1790. He was nominated as minister to France in 1794. In 1786, Monroe married Elizabeth Kortright. They had two daughters together.

Monroe was chosen to become secretary of state in 1811, and continued until he was president.

Monroe’s presidency was called the era of good feelings. Some of the major events included the Seminole wars, the addition of Florida, and the Missouri compromise.

After Monroe’s presidency, he retired to his estate. He felt like Congress owed him money, so Congress payed him 60,000 dollars in total. James Monroe died on July 4, 1831.

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Jan, 2025

PF Lesson 60 Assignment

In this assignment, I will be writing about American credit card debt and how it has changed over the past few years.

American credit card debt has been rising over the past 25 or so years, since tracking began in 1999. half of credit card owners have debt on their cards! Over half of all credit card owners pay off their balance every month. These people enjoy no interest rates. But for the other half of credit card owners who have debt on their cards, they can become trapped, drowning in the high interest rates.

According to lendingtree.com, the total credit card balance of all the cardholders in the U.S. is $1.166 trillion dollars! (This was in august of 2024, so the total may be higher now.) Credit card interest rates are rising too, and are currently around 20.15%.

If you can’t pay off your credit card balance every month, stop and reconsider: Is owning a credit card or that particular credit card helping you or hurting you more?

In summary, American credit card debt has been rising and it is becoming harder to stay out of the trap of high interest rates.

See PF Lesson 55 Assignment for more information on credit card interest rates.

References:

https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2024/08/26/us-credit-card-debt-continues-to-rise-as-housing-and-other-costs-remain-high-for-the-lowest-earners/

https://www.lendingtree.com/credit-cards/study/credit-card-debt-statistics

8G History Lesson 45 Assignment

In this assignment, I will be summarizing the founding and early history of Washington D.C.

Washington D.C. was founded on July 16, 1790. Congress had signed the Residence Act a year before, which made it possible to set up a new capitol. Before Washington D.C., Philadelphia and New York City had served as the capitol. George Washington chose the site, between Georgetown and Alexandria. Maryland and Virginia both gave of some of their land to make room for the capitol. The territory around Washington was named the District of Columbia to honor Christopher Columbus.

George Washington appointed Pierre L’Enfant, a French designer, to plan the layout of the city, and Andrew Ellicott surveyed the area. Thomas Johnson, Daniel Carroll, and David Stuart were chosen by Congress to oversee the work.

The design of Washington D.C. has influences from Greek and Roman architecture. The city was laid out like a grid, and it had big buildings for all the main branches of government. L’Enfant brought some of his French style into the mix, with some parts similar to Paris.

In 1800, Washington D.C. became the official capitol of the United States. The Capitol and the President’s house (now the White House) were finished soon after. There wasn’t much housing and the people who lived there were miserable in the early years.

Most of D.C. was destroyed in 1814, during the War of 1812, when the British invaded the city and burned it. The city slowly recovered, and in 1817 the new White House was built, and in 1819, the new Capitol was built.

Sources:

https://www.britannica.com/place/Washington-DC/History

https://www.ronpaulcurriculum.com/public/13146.cfm?cid=BBCEE3A7-D848-9838-A6FB082D7BCC375D

https://washington.org/DC-information/washington-dc-history

PF Lesson 50 Assignment

In this assignment, I will explain why interest rates are different for different kinds of loans.

Loan prices are always different for different loans. There are many reasons why they are different. Here are some:

The risk of a loan can impact the interest rate because if there is higher risk, the lender wants to be sure they can make their money out of it. High-risk loans include personal loans, and credit card loans. These are riskier, because the lender doesn’t know if the person receiving the money will pay it back. If you have a credit card, you are probably very well aware of the high interest rates.

Time can also affect the interest rate. Short-term loans might have lower interest rates because the lender’s money is not away for as long, which means that longer-term loans would have higher interest rates because the lenders money would be away for longer. An example of a long-term loan would be a mortgage.

Other reasons:

If the lender thinks the loan is going to be used to make more money, or increase the borrower’s productivity, then the lender might give a lower interest rate, because it is more likely that the loan will be payed back.

The credit score of the borrower can also impact the interest rate.

In short, the main reasons that make interest rates different are time, risk, credit score, and what the loan will be used for.

PF Lesson 55 Assignment

The assignment for this week had two parts:

Part One:

Find the daily average interest rate for all variable rate credit cards: 20.15%. Then calculate the interest you would have to pay on a $600 credit card balance compounded monthly over six months: $105.96

Part Two:

Write 300 words on a government regulation that affects interest rates, then give your opinion on that regulation:

I did have some trouble with this one, but here is my effort: (more like 200 words)

The Federal Deposit Insurance Act is a law that establishes the FDIC. The FDIC stands for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The FDIC insures bank deposits of up to 250,000 dollars. The FDIC sets limits on the interest rates that banks can set.

One of the problems with the FDIC is that it discourages banks from having better security. The banks don’t care about their security as much because if their money is stolen, the government will bail them out. It also discourages the people from pushing the banks to be better, because they know that their money will be safe. The banks could have had better insurance or their own policies about this issue, but the FDIC restricts that too.

The FDIC only insures deposits of up to 250,000 dollars, which would discourage people from saving their money in banks.

In summary, the FDIC is an unnecessary government agency that restricts banks and the people that use them.