The government has played a role in business in our history. They have hadpositive as well as negative effects on business in America. That is what I am going to belooking at for this essay. The government has played a vital part in issues such as theexcessive power that businesses have had. The government has also helped get rid ofmany kinds of prejudices against women, the elderly, the poor, the disabled, and againstmany racial and ethnic minorities. These changes began with the New Deal being ofRoosevelt. After the implementation of the New Deal the wage gap began to graduallyclose between the richest and the poorest of Americans. This can be credited to laws andalong with other government actions that were put into place during Roosevelt'spresidency. Things such as Social Security, unemployment benefits, minimum wage allthese things and much more were introduced by the government to better the lives of theworking public.Government supervision increased in the 1930s and several industriesbecame regulated by the government, such as trucking, airlines, electric utilities, andinterstate gas. Other industries as well were kept under government regulation until the1970s and 80s when they realized that the New Deal ideas that were passed in anemergency, were inappropriate in the long run for certain industries.The Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 required thatall companies that were traded on the stock exchanges as well as banking firms andsecurities industries issue to stockholders and to the government detailed annual reports. These would contain information essential to the consumers. Also railroads and utilitieswere required to submit annual reports to regulatory commissions. The regulatorycommissions and the annual reports were created to make sure that laws would befollowed. The laws benefited the investment banking industry in the long run, because ithelped companies sell stocks and bonds ...
