Culture of the 1990’s

8G History Lesson 155 Assignment

In this assignment, I will be covering the culture of the 1990’s. I will be writing about the music, tv shows, clothing styles, and Y2K.

Music during the 90’s

Popular styles during the 90’s included grunge rock, hip-hop, rap, pop, and heavy metal. Popular bands included Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Wu-Tang Clan, Mariah Carey, The Spice Girls, Green Day, and the Backstreet Boys.

TV, Movies, and Sports during the 90’s

There were many popular TV shows during the 90s, but here are some of the most popular: “ER” was a drama show watched by millions about a hospital emergency room. “Law and Order” was another famous drama, but it focused on the interactions of police, judges, and criminals. In comedy, many people enjoyed watching “Friends” and “Seinfield”. “The Simpsons was and still is a very popular animated comedy show, but its humor is generally more for adults.

In the movie theatres, films like “Titanic” and “Jurassic Park” were smash hits. “Titanic” is about the Titanic that sunk because of an iceberg. “Jurassic Park” is about the world after dinosaurs have been brought back.

Basketball fans cheered on Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, who won 6 championships in the decade. Many MLB players went on strike in 1994, resulting in the World Series being cancelled.

Clothing Styles during the 90’s

Clothing styles were similar to the 80’s, most people dressed casually. Jeans and a t-shirt was not an uncommon outfit. Some people opted for a more bold look, with styles like punk or grunge being trendy.

The Y2K Scare

The Y2K scare was a series of computer bugs that were feared to occur during the turn of the century. Since many computers at that time stored the year as 2 digits (for example the year 1999 would be 99), people thought that computers all over the world would crash because they couldn’t process the new date, 2000. In reality, nothing major happened, because so many businesses and people installed new software features that protected against the bugs.

I hope you enjoyed reading this post about the culture of the 1990’s.

Top 5 Financial Mistakes of Newly Married Couples

Personal Finance Lesson 170 Assignment

There are many common mistakes that newly married couples make, but these are (in my opinion) the top 5 financial mistakes:

  1. Spending too much on the wedding: This is perhaps the biggest financially related mistake that couples can make. Having an extravagant wedding may seem like a good decision in the moment, but it will really make a dent in the bank account later! The things that cost the most when hosting a wedding are the venue, the catering/food, the wedding dress, and decorations.
  2. Dating too often: Dating is a good thing, but too much of a good thing is still too much! Taking your partner out for a date once in a while is a good idea, but doing it too often will result in a large expense. To cut costs, sometimes you could have a stay at home date instead! Watching a movie at home with homemade popcorn or playing board games are two ideas.
  3. Buying an expensive car/house: This is another big one that can potentially cause major problems. Don’t buy an expensive car or house just to impress your spouse, and don’t buy anything without talking to them first!
  4. Not creating a budget: Creating a budget is an important step towards managing money more efficiently. Not creating a budget will lead to problems and disagreements with your spouse.
  5. Not having an emergency fund: Having an emergency fun is very important, because you want to be prepared for any emergencies that may come up. If you do not have an emergency fund, you will be totally unprepared for emergencies.

In my opinion, these are the top 5 financial mistakes newly married couples can make. I hope that this article will help you avoid making these mistakes.

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Jul, 2025

Ronald Reagan

8G History Lesson 150 Assignment

Ronald Reagan was born on February 6, 1911 in Illinois. His dad was an alcoholic, and it was hard for him to stay in a job. Reagan went to Eureka College, where he played football and was in the drama society. His grades were passing, but not amazing. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics, but later decided to pursue sportscasting. Reagan became the sportscaster for the radio stations WCO and later WHO.

Reagan soon became interested in acting, and landed a job with Warner Bros. Interestingly, the characters that Reagan played in the movies were often like Reagan himself. Reagan served in the war by making army training films. Although he wasn’t involved in any combat, he was portrayed as being a real soldier.

Between 1947 and 1952 Reagan was president of the Screen Actors Guild. His job was to Around this time, Reagan’s political beliefs were shifting. He had previously been more of a Democrat, but was slowly becoming more conservative. Eventually he declared himself to be a Republican.

Reagan supported Barry Goldwater, a Republican who ran for president during the 1964 presidential election. Reagan gained a lot of popularity even though Goldwater didn’t win.

Due to the popularity Reagan received by endorsing Goldwater, Reagan was asked to run for governor of California in the 1966 election. He won, taking over 57 percent of the vote. As governor, Reagan approved tax increases and helped reform the welfare system.

In 1976 Reagan ran for president, and although he lost the nomination for Republican on the ballot, he received many write in votes. Reagan ran again for president in 1980, and this time he won!

As president, Reagan implemented a type of economics commonly called supply-side economics, which is a type of free market economics that focuses on lowering taxes and and government spending and deregulating the economy. Some people criticized Reagan’s use of this, calling it Reaganomics or Voodoo economics. During Reagan’s presidency, inflation dropped from 13.5% to 4.1%. He also lowered income taxes by 25% for everyone.

Reagan pushed to allow organized prayer in schools. He tried to overturn the ruling that the Supreme Court issued that didn’t allow a moment of silence for prayer in schools. Reagan was not ultimately successful in this matter.

Reagan prioritized rebuilding the military, and the defense budget went up while he was in office. He sent the U.S. military to invade Grenada, ultimately resulting in a U.S. victory.

Reagan campaigned for a second term in 1984, and won in a landside victory, taking electoral votes from 49 out of the 50 states. In his second term, Reagan passed the Tax Reform act, which made the tax filing system much easier and lowered taxes overall. The economy continued to grow, and Reagan continued to invest more money into the national defense.

After Reagan left office, his health declined, and in 1994 he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Reagan was not in public much as his health declined. Weakened by Alzheimer’s he passed away in 2004 from pneumonia. He was given a state funeral and many former presidents attended.

I hope you enjoyed learning about Ronald Reagan, his life and his career.

The Federal Reserve and the Economy

Personal Finance Lesson 160 Assignment

In this assignment, I will be explaining what the Federal Reserve is and what it does to the economy.

The Federal Reserve

The Federal Reserve is the central bank of the U.S. In short, it is a super bank that connects all banks together. It is closely tied to the U.S. government. It was originally created to allow banks to extend more loans without having to worry about the consequences.

The Federal Reserve (often shortened to Fed) has many functions. It primarily controls the money supply, but it also issues new currency, serves as a last-resort lender, and is a bank for the government. The Fed can also collect data and do economic research.

The Fed was created by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Just a few years earlier, the nation had experienced the Panic of 1907, when many banks failed and the stock markets crashed. This scared a lot of people, eventually leading to the creation of the Federal Reserve.

One common misconception that some people have about the Fed is that it is a part of the government. Although the Fed is closely tied to the government, it is not technically a part or branch of the government.

The Federal Reserve impacts our economy by making policies and giving bailouts to banks. Some of these policies can restrict the economy, and are not helpful. The Fed can also increase the amount of money in circulation, although they don’t directly print it.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!

Current Economic Report

Personal Finance Lesson 155 Assignment

In this week’s assignment, I will be giving a 600 word report on the health of our economy, providing sources to support my reasoning.

The current state of our economy is not amazing, and it could definitely be better. Here are some sources that indicate our economy is not great:

Unemployment Rate – ShadowStats

https://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts

This unemployment rate graph suggests that the unemployment rate is much higher than the government is trying to make people think. The red line is the official unemployment rate according to the government. The blue line is the ShadowStats alternative unemployment rate. You can see that it is a lot higher than the “official” unemployment rate. If you look at the graph, you can see several spikes that mark recessions, with the big spike near the right side of the graph being the COVID recession. Having a 25% unemployment rate is not at all great for the economy!

GDP

https://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/gross-domestic-product-charts

This chart shows the GDP annual growth in the U.S. GDP stands for Gross Domestic Product, which is the total value of all the goods and services that our country produces. (Note that this is the measure of the percent change in GDP, not total GDP). In this graph the official GDP shows as being fairly high, and only going below 0% a few times. The ShadowStats alternative tells a different story! It shows that the GDP is actually a lot lower, and has dipped below 0% quite a few times, which means that our country had actually been losing value during those times!

Inflation Rate

https://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts

The inflation rate is another marker of economic health. This chart only goes up to mid-2023, but currently the official inflation rate is around 3%. That doesn’t sound very high, but according to ShadowStats, it is a lot higher! An interesting thing to note on the graph is that while the official inflation rate goes below 05 a few times, the ShadowStats alternate inflation rate never does! In fact, its lowest was just under 2%. You may be wondering why inflation is bad, so I’ll explain it in a simple example.

Imagine an economy where the total money supply is $100, and you own 10 of those. You would own 10% of all the money, making you very wealthy! Now imagine the government of this fictional economy printing $900. This would bring the total money supply to $1000, and you still own 10 of them. But now you have only 1% of the money supply! It is even more hurtful to the less wealthy people! In our economy, the government can print out money anytime (and in fact all the time), which is constantly making our money worth less and less. Inflation is only helpful for the government, and only during the short run.

Tariffs

I don’t have a graph for this one, but I’ll start by explaining what tariffs are and how they impact our economy. Tariffs are basically taxes on other countries. If you set a 25% tariff on all goods from Mexico, for example, then all the people who bring avocados from Mexico to the U.S. must pay 25% of the price they are selling them for to the U.S. government. This forces the people who are selling avocados to increase their prices so they can make a profit, which makes us pay higher prices for our avocados.

Currently, many tariffs are being imposed on other countries, which is probably going to make stuff a lot more expensive!

Conclusion

According to the reasons I have mentioned, the U.S. economy is not doing great. We are having high inflation rates, high unemployment, many tariffs, and low GDP. I sure hope our economy will be able to recover from this!