As you are aware from your readings in chapter 9, fluctuations in the business cycle hurt some people, but they are also beneficial to some people. For example, during a recession some people become unemployed – that’s bad. But the prices of things, such as housing, automobiles, interest rates (just to name a few) go down – that’s good). During inflation, the price level rises thus reducing the real (purchasing power) value of your income (that's bad). But some people benefit from inflation (e.g., people who want to sell real property, borrowers, salesmen who receive a commission). During the “Great Recession” (2007 – 2009, see Consider This on page 131 and Last Word on page 133) some people were hurt, but others benefited.

Your job in this Discussion Topic is to identify someone who was hurt (not by name) and how they were hurt, and identify someone who actually benefited and describe how the Great Recession made them winners. Here’s an all too brief example:

My cousin was looking to buy a house. When the housing market crashed, he was able to buy one really cheap and get a very low interest rate. On the other hand, my brother lost his job and was out of work for a year.

This would NOT be considered a “quality response,” but I think you get the idea. Post questions and comments about this Discussion Topic to the Mechanics & Logistics forum. We’ll save the DT 6 forum for content only. This Discussion Topic closes at midnight on Monday, 4/9. Warning: Do not submit your first draft. I can always tell because they are virtually always highly unpolished. We are becoming more sophisticated economists, now. We need to start sounding like it. Bad grammar, misspellings, incoherent sentences, and the like will start costing you points. Make it easy on the reader (that would be me) to figure out what you're trying to say.