Question

Chapter 11:

1.Even before the economic crisis of 2007 to 2009, employees in the United States were working about _____ more hours per year than their European counterparts.

a. 70

b. 249

c. 350

d. 1,970

2. In 2005, about 20% of home loans were _____, meaning they were loans sold to low-income people who had little chance of paying their mortgages, often under predatory terms that were especially unfavorable to the unsuspecting borrowers.

a. subprime

2. triple-A rated

c. fixed-rate

d. refinanced

3. According to United for a Fair Economy, _____ lost between $163 billion and $278 billion from subprime loans taken out between 1999 and 2007.

a. Native Americans and poor Whites

b. African Americans and Latinos

c. Asian Americans and middle-class Blacks

d. Hispanics and Asian Americans recent immigrants

4. What forces combined in 2007 to bring about the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s?

a. Hurricane Katrina and the resulting bailout to homeowners

b. Bipartisan support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

c. Predatory mortgage lending and irresponsible dealing on Wall Street

d. The election of the nation’s first Black president and a Republican legislature   

5. The effects of the burst housing bubble fell disproportionately on minorities. By 2009 some 1.5 million homes, owned mostly by _____, were lost through subprime foreclosures.

a. all minorities combined

b. Asian Americans

c. Latinos

d. African Americans   

6. In addition to homeowners, _____ suffered during the housing bubble collapse and many faced eviction from their dwellings.

a. renters

b. small businesses

c. big banks

d. nursing home residents

7. According to research by Marquardt and Shinkle, stock market value declined by $7.3 _____ in 2008 alone.

a. thousand

b. million

c. billion

d. trillion

8. In 2008 alone, individuals who had contributed to 401(k) retirement savings accounts for 20 years or more lost an average of _____ of value.

a. 5%

b. 10%

c. 20%

d. 25%

9. A major source of bankruptcy for people in the United States is the inability to pay for _____, especially for people who lose this benefit because they lost their jobs.

a. their children’s college tuition

b. catastrophic health care needs

c. vacations and luxury items

d. the high interest on credit card bills

10. By early 2009, around 16.5 million children received _____, up 6.5% from the previous year.

a. free school lunches

b. college scholarships

c. art and music education

d. health care

11. Around 40% of the homeless population were families, typically

a. single fathers with children.

b. single mothers with children.

c. married couples with teenage children.

d. single or married women responsible for aging parents.

12. The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless found that in 2008, 22% of families seeking emergency shelter were

a. choosing to walk out on their underwater mortgages.

b. seeking shelter after a natural disaster.

c. homeless for the first time.

d. chronically homeless.

13. Although the Great Recession technically ended in 2010, there are long-term consequences still being felt; for instance, governments at the local, state, and federal level

a. received large influxes of money by charging penalties to banks that had engaged in predatory lending practices.

b. spent large amounts of tax money on services for the newly homeless.

c. lost significant tax revenues, causing them to impose punitively high taxes.

d. lost significant tax revenues, causing them to face serious budget shortfalls.

14. Which of the following is NOT one of the challenges faced by today’s recent college graduates?

a. Higher salaries

b. Higher unemployment rate

c. Greater student loan debt

d. Lower salaries

15. Despite signs of economic recovery, the legacy of the Great Recession is _____ the U.S. economic system and the government’s ability to address the economic difficulties faced by American families.

a. increased trust in

b. diminished trust in

c. increased dependence on

d. diminished dependence on

Chapter 12

1. The _____ model views power as broadly distributed among a number of organizations, special interests, and the voters.

1. elitist
2. pluralist
3. instrumentalist
4. conflict

2. What percentage of Americans of voting age chose to vote in the 2012 presidential election?

1. 96.2%
2. 63.5%
3. 53.6%
4. 37.1%

3. What is the term for the process in which state legislatures under partisan control deliberately shape congressional districts to favor their own parties?

1. Electioneering
2. Polling
3. Gerrymandering
4. Campaigning

4. Which model of societal power is similar to the views of Karl Marx?

1. Elitist
2. Pluralist
3. Citizenry
4. Order

5. Which of the following is NOT part of Mills’s pyramid of power?

1. Power elite
2. Local opinion leaders, legislatures, and interest groups
3. Clerisy
4. Powerless masses

6. Mills argued that the members of the ruling elite interact with each other, their children go to the same schools, and they do business together. Hence, these people who are the inner circle of the upper social classes tend to see the world alike. This idea is the basis of which of his factors of unity?

1. Pyramid of power
2. Psychological similarity   
3. Social interaction  

d. Coinciding interests   

7. Which of the following noted in his Dominant Class model of power that appointees to influential, unelected positions are either members of the upper class or people who have held positions in major corporations, and are thereby people who accord with the wishes of the upper class?

1. Karl Marx
2. C. Wright Mills
3. Michael Parenti
4. G. William Domhoff

8. Which of the following is the author of the Bias of the System theory?

1. Karl Marx
2. C. Wright Mills
3. Michael Parenti
4. G. William Domhoff

9. Between 2001 and 2007, Philip Morris, the leader in the tobacco industry, spent over $75 million on _____ to keep tobacco regulations and increased cigarette taxes at a minimum.

1. lobbying
2. advertising
3. bribery
4. research

10. Despite paying lip service to laissez-faire capitalism, the U.S. government actually _____ big business.

1. greatly subsidizes
2. completely ignores
3. closely regulates
4. overtaxes

11. The idea that giving money to wealthy businesses will benefit everyone below them on the social ladder is known as

1. fair and balanced redistribution of wealth.
2. subsidizing poverty.
3. socialism.
4. trickle-down economics.

12. Who is most likely to bear the burden of decisions made by the powerful?

1. Rival power brokers
2. The poor
3. Corporations
4. Small business

13. After the Great Recession hit in late 2007, federal and state governments had to reduce or eliminate programs. Where were the biggest cuts made?

1. Congressional pay
2. Subsidies to corporations
3. Public schools
4. The military

14. What legal practice took place during the Civil War?

1. The affluent were overrepresented in the Union Army.
2. The affluent who were drafted could hire someone to take their place in the service.
3. The disadvantaged were underrepresented in the Confederate Army.
4. The affluent could pay to take the place of someone else in the service.

15. Which U.S. president first said, “The business of America is business”?

1. Theodore Roosevelt
2. Herbert Hoover
3. Calvin Coolidge
4. Rutherford B. Hayes

Answer 1

Q1) The answer is (c) 350. The average hours worked in US were around 1750 and in Europe around 1400 per year before the crisis, so a difference of about 350 hours.

Q2) The answer is (a) sub-prime. These were collateral loans given to subprime borrowers who were almost certain to default, which led to the burst of the housing price bubble.

Q4) the answer is (c) Predatory mortgage lending and irresponsible dealing on Wall Street. This furtehr exacerbated the crisis as the financial institutions engaged in large scale financial fraud.

Q6) The answer is (a) renters. Renters suffered as well during the housing bubble burt and were forced out of theri homes.