Key Terms
- al-Qaeda
- a militant Islamist group originally founded by Osama bin Laden
- boomerang generation
- young people who must return to their parents’ homes in order to make ends meet
- Bush Doctrine
- the belief that the United States has the right to protect itself from terrorist acts by engaging in pre-emptive wars or ousting hostile governments in favor of friendly, preferably democratic, regimes
- charter schools
- elementary and secondary schools that, although funded by taxpayer money, are allowed to operate independently from some rules and regulations governing public schools
- civil unions
- a civil status offered to gay and lesbian couples with the goal of securing the main privileges of marriage without granting them equal status in marriage
- credit default swaps
- financial instruments that pay buyers even if a purchased loan defaults; a form of insurance for risky loans
- Great Recession
- the economic recession that began in 2008, following the collapse of the housing boom, and was driven by risky and misleading subprime mortgages and a deregulated bond market
- greenhouse gases
- gases in the earth’s atmosphere, like carbon dioxide, that trap heat and prevent it from radiating into space
- Kyoto Protocol
- an international agreement establishing regulations designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the world’s industrialized nations
- Obamacare
- the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
- subprime mortgage
- a type of mortgage offered to borrowers with lower credit ratings; subprime loans feature interest rates that are higher (often adjustable) than conventional mortgages to compensate the bank for the increased risk of default
- Taliban
- a fundamentalist Muslim group that ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001
- Tea Party
- a conservative movement focused primarily on limiting government spending and the size of the federal government
- WMDs
- weapons of mass destruction; a class of weapons capable of inflicting massive causalities and physical destruction, such as nuclear bombs or biological and chemical weapons