The corporations Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae helped to guarantee private home loans. James B. Lockhart III was the director of FHFA or Federal Housing Finance Agency in the year 2008 and he decided to give two government sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship of government enterprises. Fannie Mae was founded in the year 1938.
Gorbachev's reforms are ultimately responsible for the Soviet collapse, which saw the end of Soviet superpower status, a massive reduction in the Soviet military's size and strength, the unilateral evacuation of all territories in Central and Eastern Europe occupied at great human cost in the Second World War, and a rapidly declining economy fragmented into fifteen separate states. Much of the argument that the Soviet political system and economy needed reform needed change to avoid collapse came directly from him - the phrase "Era of Stagnation" to describe the Brezhnev years is actually a piece of Gorbachev's rhetoric. However there seems to be a strong case (made by Stephen Kotkin in Armageddon Averted), that while the Soviet economy was growing at ever slower rates, and increasingly unable to close the ever-present gap in living standards between the USSR and the West, probably could have continued to muddle on - there was no imminent danger of political and economic collapse in 1985. It's also important to note that Gorbachev's reforms did not cause the collapse of the USSR on purpose, and Gorbachev was always committed to maintaining the union in some reformed shape under an economic system that was still socialist. However, his reforms both began to pick apart the centralized economy without really creating new institutions, which caused severe economic disruptions, and his political reforms unleashed new political movements outside his control, while all of these reforms antagonized more hardline members of the nomenklatura (party establishment). Ultimately he lost control of the situation. The Soviet system was highly-centralized and governed in a top-down approach, and it was Gorbachev who put reforms into motion and also removed members of the Soviet government and Communist party who opposed reforms. Gorbachev's period tends to get divided into roughly three periods: a period of reform, a period of transformation, and a period of collapse. The period of reform lasted roughly from 1985 to 1988, in which Gorbachev and his supporters in the government (notably Eduard Shevardnadze, Gorbachev's foreign minister and the future President of Georgi, and Aleksandr Yakovlev, Gorbachev's ally on the Politburo and the intellectual driver of reforms) tried a mixture of moderate reforms and moral suasion to revitalize the Soviet economy as it was, echoing Khrushchev's reforms of 20 years previous. While the goal was a revitalization of Soviet society and the economy, there was a very strong focus on morality: this period notably featured the anti-alcoholism/prohibition campaign, and very public campaigns against corruption (Dmitry Furman called this a "sort of Marxist Protestantism"). When these efforts did not secure the results that Gorbachev and his reformers desired, more far-reaching reforms were pursued in the 1988-1990 period. This is when Gorbachev made massive changes to Soviet foreign policy, such as withdrawing from Afghanistan in 1989, announcing unilateral cuts to military spending and forces at the UN in 1988, and more or less cutting the USSR's Eastern European satellite states in 1989. On the domestic sphere, this is when Gorbachev pushed through major political changes to the Soviet system, pushing through a new Congress of People's Deputies to be filled through semi-free elections, removing the Communist Party's monopoly of power and creating the office of President of the USSR for himself in 1990. This is also the period when glasnost ("openness", ie the lifting of censorship) took off, and these all were largely attempts to establish a new base of support for continued reforms once it became clear to Gorbachev that most of the Communist Party was uninterested in this. These reforms ushered in the 1990-1991 chaos, at which point Gorbachev essentially lost control. Falling oil prices and the crackdown on alcohol sales (which were a massive part of the Soviet budget), plus Gorbachev's loosening of management and sales restrictions on state firms while maintaining most of their subsidies, plus plans for importing of new Western machine tools and technology to revitalize the economy, seriously destabilized the Soviet budget, and caused the government to turn to the printing presses to cover ever increasing deficits.
Ella Osborn’s 1918 diary provides insight into the experiences of an American nurse serving in
France at the end of World War I. In addition to her notes about the men under her care and
events in France, Osborn jotted down two popular World War I poems, “In Flanders Fields,” by
Canadian surgeon Lt. Col. John D. McCrae, and “The Answer,” by Lt. J. A. Armstrong of
Wisconsin.
McCrae composed “In Flanders Fields” on May 3, 1915, during the Second Battle of Ypres,
Belgium. It was published in Punch magazine on December 8, 1915, and became one of the most
popular and frequently quoted poems about the war. It was used for recruitment, in propaganda
efforts, and to sell war bonds. Today the red poppy of McCrae’s poem has become a symbol for
soldiers who have died in combat.
In Flanders Fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place.
“The Answer” is one of many poems written in response to “In Flanders Fields”:
Sleep peacefully, for all is well.
Your flaming torch aloft we bear,
With burning heart an oath we swear
To keep the faith to fight it through
To crush the foe, or sleep with you
In Flanders Field
Osborn’s transcripts of the poems contain some textual differences from the published versions.
Based on the ink used in the diary entries and the ink used in the verses, it appears she went back
in her diary to find empty pages to include the poems.
Transcripts
[The poems as transcribed in Osborn’s diary contain some textual differences from the published versions.]
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders Fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place. While in the Sky
The larks still bravely singing, fly
2
World War I poems: “In Flanders Fields” & “The Answer,” 1918
© 2014 The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
www.gilderlehrman.org
Unheard, amid the guns below.
We are the dead, Short days ago
We lived, felt dawns, saw sunsets glow;
Loved and were loved – but now we lie
In Flanders Field
Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from falling hands we throw
The torch, Be yours to bear it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep tho’ poppies blow
In Flanders Field.
The Answer –
In Flanders Field the cannon boom
And fitful flashes light the gloom;
While up above, like Eagles, fly
The fierce destroyers of the sky;
With stains the earth wherein you lie
Is redder than the poppy bloom
In Flanders Field.
Sleep on ye brave! The shrieking shell,
The quaking trench, the startling yell,
The fury of the battle hell
Shall wake you not; for all is well.
Sleep peacefully, for all is well.
Your flaming torch aloft we bear,
With burning heart an oath we swear
To keep the faith to fight it through
To crush the foe, or sleep with
Answer: Carter lost popularity over the Iranian crisis because many Americans felt his response to the crisis was slow and indecisive. Many felt he did not harness the power of the US to effectively address the crisis
Explanation: Carter's response to the crisis led to his defeat in 1980 by Ronald Reagan.
The number of electoral votes per state is equal to the number of its senators plus the number of its individuals in the House of Representatives.
