for economics usa, this is david schoumacher.b project captioning performed by the national captioning institute, inc. captions copyright 1986 educational film center nenberg media ♪ for information about this and other annenberg media programs call 1-800-learner and visit us at www.learner.org.

i'm david schoumacher.re have always been people left out of the american dream -- the young, the old the ill, the untrained. and those who've just lost out in a competitive economy which has losers as well as winners. today we take it for granted that the government has a role to play in reducing poverty and we argue only about how and how much. but before food stamps and public housing before government aid to the elderly what happened when the elderly faced the great depression? i see 1/3 of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad ill-nourished... schoumacher: the great depression cut too wide and too deep for business-as-usual. the depression demanded new answers to poverty. no group suffered more than the elderly. savings accounts were wiped out, pensions were rare family resources, gone. the needs of the elderly have always carried a special urgency. not everyone will become unemployed or disabled but we will all get old. how could depression america protect its citizens from the hazards of old age? americanloo

for economics usa, i'm david schoumacher.tioning is made possible by the annenberg/cpb project captioning performed by the national captioning institute, inc. captions copyright 1986 educational film center i'll get that one. must be careful. well, that's a nice picture. come on, anna. ok. announcer: foreclosure doesn't affect just you. it affects your whole family, too. if you've fallen behind on your mortgage, we can help. call 1-888-995-hope. because nothing is worse than doing nothing. annenberg media ♪ annenberg media ♪ many elderly americans were too old to work. pensions were non-existent, savings gone. what was franklin delano roosevelt's answer to the needs of older americans? too many young people were untrained, uneducated, and unemployable. how could they get a place at the economic starting line? welfare reform.

i'm david schoumacher. united states has always been blessed with vast natural resources, including some things we used to take for granted, like fresh water and clean, healthy air. but not any longer. in the past few decades, we've learned that industrial activity carries with it a substantial environmental price tag. if we want fresher water and healthier air, somebody is going to have to pay for it, as we found in the tiny town of silver bay, on the shores of lake superior. 30 years ago, this part of minnesota was practically a wilderness area. then, shortly after world war ii, some farsighted entrepreneurs decided there was money to be made in a rock called taconite, found here in abundance, near the famous mesabi iron range. they called their venture the reserve mining company. ruth erickson remembers the early days, before the trouble started. anybody that came here to work was in -- [ dog barks ] shush! -- was in bad shape economically. and reserve built the town, they furnished us with our medical f

this is david schoumacher.

i'm david schoumacher. we like to think of our economy as one that runs on competition. instance, we can choose the brand ofasoline we buy. if one station sets its prices too high, thene can simply go across the stet if one station for a lower price.o high, if enough drivers pass the high-price station by, sooner or later it goes out of business. of course, if in order to attract business a station sets its prices too low and can't cover costs, sooner or later it'll go out of business, too. but what happens to prices if one company, or one person, controls all the gas stations? that was what the country faced in 1890. the company was standard oil -- the man was john d. rockefeller. this was the infant oil industry john d. rockefeller saw after the civil war. drilling equipment was hand- and foot-operated in those days and available cheap. anybody could join the oil rh, and anybody di with thousands of small-scale prospectors, drillers, and refiners competing, the supply of oil was plentiful. prices were low, and so were profits. rockefeller had been doing well as a cleve