OK…time to refresh some selective memory…some institutional amnesia…about the cause and effect of The Great Recession of 2008 – 20?? :

Let’s not forget that it is the Administration’s Constitutionally, (uh…that would be the Prez George Bush), delegated responsibility to create and oversee the budget….but more importantly, the regulation and enforcement of Financial Markets, including and most especially relevant in the subject discussion Banking through the Fed, and the stocks and bonds, through the Securities and Exchange Commission
So unfettered by those “capitalistic disincentives”. those inconvenient rules and regulations, and an effete SEC and FED, they flourished…because of the laxity of enforcement and total capitulation to the Financial Corporatocracy thereby creating a free-for-all food fight of speculation.

And there’s plenty of blame to go around…after the music stopped, it was Hank Paulson, Secy Treasurer…who was busy making sure that his cronies, of his former roots still firmly planted in the Goldman Sachs rose garden, would escape with minimum damage…and indeed, they come out smelling like a rose…to some…to me, the whole thing has the distinct aroma…the stench of the Banking Corportacracy’s pooping on the taxpayers.

But the real genesis of The Great Recession was when the Republican Congress, both houses, in particular under Phil Graham’s “leadership”, repealed Glass-Steagall in 1999…yes, Clinton signed off on it…which he must bear the responsibility for. But that allowed and in fact encouraged the creation of essentially UNREGULATED opaque labyrinthine derivatives, and hedge funds…which created nothing tangible…all just pure speculation…biblical money changers gaming the system, for their own self-interest and greed…ultimately on the backs of the middle-class tax payers.

That set the stage for the beginning of The Great Unraveling, as Economist Paul Krugman aptly puts it…a pigfest at the trough of shameless speculation…naked short-selling…Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) where speculators were betting against the system…hoping for the CDOs to fail…the big casino…for a 1% premium, they could reap a 99% profit from the CDOs that failed…

And…while we’re in the “lest we forget “mode of our ultra-conservative friends…it was Bush/Paulson/Bernake, who out of their gross mismanagement and regulatory malfeasance, begged the congress to create TARP to, “prevent the system from having a total economic collapse”

 A common theme…unabashed greed…it’s a thread that consistently runs through as the proximate cause of the whole collapse.

And what does that say about a culture…a society that produces and tolerates, and indeed worships that kind of collective sociopathic mentality…literally a whole army of little Greed-is-Good-Gordon- Geckos…Masters of the Universe…uniformed in their $3,500 Armanis, laughing and high-fivin’ all the way, as they took the country, indeed the world to the brink of financial Armageddon…

All the obscene wealth that was generated in traders bonuses etc…it was shamelessly based on the speculation that a quick short-term killing could be made by securitizing sub-prime mortgages of poor, and in most cases financially illiterate folks, cynically exploiting their hopes that they to, could have just a little slice of the American dream…and betting against that dream…the whole time…speculators, of the worst stripe, HOPING that the system would collapse…nice folks eh?

So maybe somebody could help me out here.  Can somebody explain to me, how the Bush Administration ran deficits for all eight years, when they inherited a thriving economy from the Clinton Administration with record surpluses, on target to pay off ALL PUBLIC DEBT BY 2010 (OMB), and record LOW unemployment numbers(BLS).  Then the Bush Administration, when the “fiscally responsible” Republicans, controlled both Houses of Congress, started two TRILLION dollar “preventative wars”,  ran RECORD DEFICITS WHILE GIVING THEMSELVES TWO TAX CUTS…right up until, 2006, when the Democrats took back both houses of congress, which many conservatives call the genesis, and cite as defining moment of the beginning of The Great Recession?  Risibly, yet tragically, it takes Amnesia to an art form.

So…the bus driver, uh…that would be Bush, drives the economy bus into a ditch…now the Republicans are trying to blame the tow truck driver, uh that would be Obama –who’s there to pull out and otherwise salvage what’s left of a near total loss — for causing the wreck? Oh…pleeeeeze…

Obama Presidency begins:

The beginning of The Great Recession
        UE%
2008 5.8% Q4 – collapse of banking system and initiation of TARP by Bush administration
2007 4.6% deficit
2006 4.6% deficit
2005 5.1% deficit
2004 5.5% deficit
2003 6.0% deficit
2002 5.8% deficit
2001 4.7% deficit

Bush Presidency begins:

2000 4.0% surplus
1999 4.2% surplus
1998 4.5% surplus
1997 4.9% surplus
1996 5.4% deficit
1995 5.6% deficit
1994 6.1% deficit
1993 6.9%  deficit
1992 7.5%  deficit

Clinton Presidency begins

Republican Presidency of Bush #41 ends