I knew it would go down the toilet as soon as Bush started 2 wars at once. Although there was plenty of need to go after Osama in Laden in Afghanistan, there was no justification to go into Iraq because they had not attacked us. Even though Saddam Hussein was one of the worst tyrants in the whole world, and needed to be displaced, it was inevitable from an economic standpoint for the economy to tank when Bush was pouring such large amounts of money down "the rat-hole called war".
Loaning or giving billions to businesses won't work unless taxpayers and middle-class families have money to spend, and the confidence that they will still have a job when the bills come due. First, Bush gave tax cuts to the rich, then inflation began to creep up slowly as middle-class families tried to maintain hard-worked-for lifestyles with credit. Then came the sub-prime lending scam to rope in unsuspecting borrowers to jump on the opportunity to buy a home before the prices went up. While all this was going on, Bush kept saying that the economy was sound, all the while he and his rich cronies were stealing from the middle-class in the form of sky-rocketing oil prices, thus causing general inflation, and pouring more money into the war in Iraq (The Surge). Then when, the middle-class began to run out of credit, they began to tighten their belts. Then, businesses began laying workers off, thus compounding the shaky base of the economy. Without consumers to buy stuff, and the sharply-increasing numbers of Americans filing for medical bankruptcy, the bottom began to crumble. Failing families are mostly invisible, but automakers, big banks, and investment houses are now crimbling because the middle-class is suffering from a decline in their purchasing power. I don't know who said, "As the middle-class goes, so goes America." But they were correct.