More than anything, the Spanish were seeking wealth.
Christopher Columbus himself thought that he had reached India: he wanted the wealth from the trade with Indians.
In the beginning, the Spanish hoped for Gold and Silver, later also for other products that could be made cheaper in the New World.
In short: the Spanish were not interested in Mexico but in what the ships could bring from Mexico (again, mostly gold).
Some, very few Spaniards, who settled in the New World were too unhappy in Europe and hoped for a better life.
The correct answer is B.
Milton Friedman (1912 - 2006) was an economist who received the 1976 Nobel Prize in Economics for his studies in consumption analysis, monetary history and complex theories related to stabilization, including goverment intervention policies.
Presidents such as Hoover or Coolidge, who had governed in the decade before the Great Depression, supported laisez-faire economic measures, that consisted on free functioning of the markets with minimum goverment interventionism. Markets alone, would produce the most efficent outcomes, according to his viewpoint. Therefore, the policies introduced by these governments, involved minimum government regulation of the economic activity by the goverment.
<u>This is why Friedman, such as many others, claimed for alternative policies which involved goverment intervention for stabilization purpouses, using the mechanisms of the fiscal policy.</u> Subsequent goverments did apply such measures, being the best example the New Deal, based on Keynesian economics and implemented by President Roosevelt. The New Deal aimed to create job positions for the large unemployed sectors of the US population, by increasing public expenditure (one of the variables of the fiscal policy) in public works and hence, creating employment to undertake those works.
