Story by Rachel Thomas

Floyd Norris, the New York Times chief financial correspondent, spoke to a group of University of Utah students on November 3, 2011 about the economy and ways to recover it.
Floyd Norris likened today’s economy to the economy during the Great Depression.
Norris said, “There was never really a consensus about what caused the great depression it didn’t seem right that the world should dive into a depression, and this is critical on what has gone wrong recently”
If the authorities had known what to do a lot of unnecessary suffering could have been avoided. A lot of the suffering that is affecting American lives was brought on by people buying houses they couldn’t afford and borrowing money they couldn’t pay back because they didn’t have the money to pay back, according to Norris’s speech.
Banks are also partly to blame for people purchasing houses they can’t afford. The government should have intervened before the foreclosures happened. In Norris’s column, “Time to Say It: Double Dip Recession May Be Happening,” in the New York Times, he refers to the current times as the Great Depression II. He reasons that this new era is considered a depression, because of the commonalities in the economy during both times. In each case the first recession was caused in large part by a sudden withdrawal of credit from the economy. The recovery came when credit conditions recovered.
“The unavailability of credit caused a decline in world trade volumes of a magnitude not seen since the Great Depression, and nearly every economy went into recession,” Norris said.
However, Norris believes there is a solution to the plummeting economy. He says the U.S. economy is showing the same signs it did when on the rebound from the past two recessions. Most politicians are embarrassed by the current disaster which is why they continue their negativity towards the steadily increasing economy.
During his lecture, Norris said, “Take seven years from when the economy blew up to have it fixed.”
Norris said he believes that informing students in college is important, because they are the next generation to be affected by the economy.
Norris said, “College aged students are going to be getting jobs and getting interviewed and they need jobs to be available. People assume that it is a well operating financial system, but when you assume then you stop paying attention to it. If you can still find a career then it doesn’t really affect you.” In today’s economy finding a well paying job isn’t that easy, so most people will run in to dilemmas because of the financial instability in America.
Chris Washington, who’s an Intro to News Writing student and attended the lecture, said, “I think becoming informed about the economy at an earlier age can help make a change, a smoother recovery for the future, and possibly push students to attend college so they have a greater chance at getting a stable job.”
When asked on his final thoughts about Norris’s lecture Steven Blomquist, a University of Utah student, said, “It was very informative and interesting to be able to hear his perspective on what is going on in the economy.”