Achievements of american economy

By the post-World War II era, the United States was producing 50 per cent of the "gross world product". The country endured a global depres­sion in the first half of the 20^th century, it surmounted sharp in­flation, high unemployment, and enormous government bud­get deficit in the second half of the last century.

By 1900, according to several criteria, the U.S. had become the greatest industrial nation, and its citizens enjoyed the high­est standard of living in the world. Today the average full-time employee works about 40 hours per week and the average fam­ily spends just 15 per cent of its income on food today. They are producing and consuming six times more goods and services per person that they were in 1900. In addition, they typically live about 30 years longer today as they have successfully fought many diseases.

Today, the American economy no longer dominates the world as it clearly did before. But with only about 5 per cent of the world's population and about 6 per cent of its land area, the United States still produces about 25 per cent of the world's in­dustrial products, agricultural goods and services. Its gross na­tional product (GNP) has more than tripled since the end of the Second World War.

America's share of the world's land that can be used for farm­ing is less than 8 per cent and only a tiny proportion of Ameri­ca's total population (less than two per cent) is involved in ag­riculture. America not only feeds her own people — one of the few industrialized countries that does so — but a great many other people in the world as well.

The United States entered the 21^st century with an econo­my that was bigger, and by many measures more successful than ever.

22. STATE STRUCTURE AND POLITICAL LIFE OF THE USA

Constitution and the Bill of Rights

The 1^st written document that the US had was called the Articles of Confederation. Later the Americans felt the necessity for Constitution. It was adopted by the Representatives in 1787 and ratified in 1790. It consists of 7 Articles. In 1791 ten amendments were added, known nowadays as the Bill of Rights.

The Bill of Rights is an expansion of the Constitution, made up of 10 short paragraphs, which establish the basic rights of American, they can enjoy during their lives:

1 - proclaims freedom of speech, religion, the press, people to set together.

2 – protects people’s rights to bear arms .

3– provides a ban to quarter soldiers in your homes in time of war.

4 - any person is protected against being arrested or being searched without arrest warrant.

5 – any person has the right to be judged in court by a grand jury

6 – guarantees a speedy public trial

7 – provides a jury trial in civil cases where the contested amount exceeds 20$

8 – all punishments should be fair.

9 – some people treated a list of rights in the Bill of Rights to mean that other rights were denied for them.

10 – idea of federalism is formed.

The Constitution in its 1^st addition didn’t mention any of the unalienable (неотчуждаемый) rights such as the freedom of the press, religion, the right of assembly. Now the Bill of Rights has 26 Amendments.

The main 3 principles of the Constitution are:

1) the principle of the Federalism, dividing power between the nation (гос-во )and its states;

The Constitution outlines the structure of the national government and specifies its powers and activities. Other governmental activities are the responsibility of the individual state.

2) the principle of separation of powers- among the 3 branches of the central government;

3) the principle of checks and balances-protection by the law.