How Did The Dollar Affect The Economy

Kyle Eakin
From British taxes contributing to the Revolutionary War to the housing collapse in 2008, every major event in the United States can be tied to money in some way. Money has been a catalyst of change over our history with both positive and negative results with the Department of the Treasury naturally being a central factor. The currencies that predate the dollar helped to create the United States as they funded our fight for freedom in multiple wars. The US dollar, a currency created less than 250 years ago, has shaped the United States history and amazingly become the most polarizing and well-known currency in the world economy.
Beginning in 1690 each colony had its own currency which led to many issues of exchange and the value of each currency. In 1775 the Continental Congress issued Its own paper currency to help fund the Revolutionary War and to unite the colonies with one currency, though concerns arose with counterfeiting by British in economic warfare and not being tangibly backed. Congress passed a bill to build a mint in Philadelphia in 1786 to better control the money supply. The United States officially adopted a bimetallic standard of silver and gold in 1792 with the silver to

A housing bubble was created by banks liberally mortgaging out homes to anyone no matter their credit and bundling mortgages together and selling them to other banks. Because of how they were bundled their credit ratings never reflected the actual risk involved; this practice was unethical but profitable until the system collapsed in 2008 and caused massive losses for both banks and homeowners. The losses were so drastic that Congress voted to bail out several of the banks at the expense of the taxpayers, many of whom were unemployed and facing foreclosure. The economy today is still recovering as interest rates and unemployment continue to return to