Author name:
وسن احسان عبد المنعم العزاوي
Supervisor name:
سرمد زكي الجادر | عبد علي كاظم المعمور
Abstract:
The course of development and progress, which the United States historically enjoyed, has made it emerge as a representative of power and authority in a way that it has not been matched by the greatest empires since the late 19th century. This is basically because of its profound economy that is based upon consistently scientific and technological developments, which has lead it stand for a luxurious economy, and consequently has pushed it to grow its military power and industry.Eventually, US now enjoys the privilege of being the only super power in the world. This last state by itself means the necessity of maintaining a war economy. This first decade of our millennium is witnessing the US as the sole supreme power in the world both military and technologically, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union, so that it has become a surpassing example.Yet historically speaking, the US as an example has not been void of symptoms of weakness or crises that the American Economy has undergone. These have been the same economic problems that are manifested in any capitalist system and are peculiar to it the extent that this system has typically been identified with them. This is because the capitalist system is subject to the law of periodical development that transforms economy from the state of boom to a state of bust through crisis, then recycles the same course all over again, together with its bond with a group of renewals that have changed the organic structure of the capital as well as the production relationships with all the economic courses whether they were short, middle, or long - term. Economists proved that these courses were disorganized or interrupted and fragmentary by their nature, the thing which they called " inconstant monotony ". These are five economic courses starting with the wave of textile, machinery and ships; second, the wave of railways; next the development of cast iron production; then, the course of electricity, automobiles, and chemistry; finally the course of speedy armament, the importance of oil up to now, a long with the third scientific revolution based upon the course of knowledge and information technology.All these phases with their developments have led to transforming the nature of economic crises from crises sprung from excess in production to structural crises since 1970s up to day. The structural crises in the capitalist system is an international one including the whole capitalist world marked by reduction in the rates of industrial production growth, and weakness and break down in the conventional branches of heavy industry with a states of unbalance in the world trade and payments, with an inclination to excessive speculations.In order to exhaust the developing countries with such crises as unemployment, indebtedness, fund; in addition to severe financial crises. The American Economy's problem started post World War II. The questions, then, was how to maintain its high - standard growth, and how to lead the capitalist system and its expansions after it came out of the war with a potential economic power. In fact, this was particularly true when it observed in the horizon such problems like weakness in the rates of capital accumulation, merchandizing (demand), with deterioration in profit rates. By 1970s, the relative weight of US retreated by reason of the increase in merger among capitalist economies, and by the growth of world trade, international credits, direct external investments, together with the emergence of Europe and Japan as forces that had the aspects of economic ascent and competition against US.Therefore the American Economy witnessed economic unstableness started with the crises between the world fund and the US dollar, a long with the increase in the American benefit rates, the international financial crises, the crises of the American industry and the subsequent deficit in the balance sheet of US, which Regan's administration failed to solve. Rather, its utmost aspiration was to delay the deficit's growth, or at least to keep it at an annual rate of $ 140 billion.Despite the economic boom of 1990s, it was by no means due to the competitive factors of the Americans goods, nor were they due to the entirely successful economic policies or their convenience, but the essential reason was that the capitals' flow to US on a large scale ( from $ 88 billion in 1990 to $ 865 billion in 2001), and the increase of direct foreign investments, which by 1999 reached about $ 1087 billion with a raise in the American Stock purchases that attained its utmost peak in 2000 by foreign investors $192.7 billion, while the value of stock shares was $292.9 billion for the same year. Still, this does not mean that there were no instabilities or economic crises. These were because the decline of the revenue on investment as a result of unexpected decline in the profitability may lead to a keen negative correction in the American Stock market. In addition, the decline in the value of assets is in the turn bound to continues falling in the economy. Moreover, indebtedness increased for a decade till it reached $5.5 trillion.The debtors, in effect, found it hard to pay their debts, the thing which eventually caused deterioration of bank holdings and disappearance of every tendency for financing new companies. The deficit in the balance of trade also increased from $131 billion in 1993 to $257 billion in 1997 and further to $275 billion in 1999. as for the deficit in the current account, it increased from $ 70 billion in 1993 to $105 in 1999. all these led the competitive capacity of the American Goods to deteriorate in many fields. The issue pushed US to force many countries to open their markets for American Goods, whether through World Trade Organization (WTO) or by the inclusive trade law of US particularly as per article 301, which considers a country indebted if it does not open its markets for the foreign goods, services, and investments.Social crises, such as a wide spread of drugs, development of armed conflicts between the federal authorities and the armed groups, too, caused negative impacts upon the American Society, these became incurable social dilemmas in the lights of the economic - social situation's chastity in the American Society. Both American companies' crises and events of September 11 1 had their influence not only on the American Economy, but it extended to include all the economies of the world; on a larger scale, it covered almost all the manifestations of the economic life (international trade, US dollar's value against other major currencies, stock markets and bond business, investments, international economic organizations, oil, etc.). These two events also had political, military and social trails and dimensions - they influenced them in all the countries of the world, whether advanced capitalist countries or even the newly born ones, and including of course, the advanced developing countries, and finally the developing ones such as the states of our Arab Region.In the view of all this, future remains bound to meeting a certain provision, which it could be possible to count on. The possible scenes of the American Economy's crises is highly related to the present events; having into consideration the foreign changes that can with hold or enhance the referred phenomena. Accordingly, the present study specifies three possible, provisional scenes : continuity, singularity, by the access to the 21st century there were two serious developments in the American Economy horizontally so that they caused an economic reluctance in a rather unexpectedly fast manner.1.The first one was represented by a decline in the investment expenditure on information technology coincided by its increase in some other sectors with instabilities in the companies budgets.2.The second one was manifested by an acute retreat in the consumer's confidence that led to the reluctance in consumption expenditure.In the lights of these economic conditions which the American Economy has been undergoing, the huge explosions that hit World Trade Center and Pentagon in September 11th, 2001, had a very bad impact on this economy including such sectors as aviation, tourism, and insurance. They also affected the American Financial system and its major sectors such as : liquidity, insurance, stock markets and bond business. They also influenced the American Foreign policy and the national security that subsequently led to full targeting of terror in the world, and hence allocating the required human and material resources for it and breakdown. Each has its role in the possibility of that scene to take place according to its variations, its enhancing aspects, or the improbability of its occurrence by its with holding reasons. Also its advisable to observe that the US is still representing the only super power in the World and this states quo is conditioned by its economic, military, and political superiority. That can keep, develop and maintain it at least for the first half of the 21st century.
