The myth that the war is to blame is not true - it will indeed crush us later on, just not yet. No, this current crisis is caused by lack of checks and balances in the *financial industry* fueled by greed. The only thing the Bush administration did is nothing at all to prevent it, not so much creating the cause. Both parties are totally guilty of creating the ecosystem where this crap continues to flourish, btw. Those older than 20 know this throughout history already. The 1980's savings and loan mess is one example...while this sort of thing can be dated back to either party in office. Campaign reform (both parties), stronger regulation with Wall Street and no more bailouts. ;) - Matt Hartley

Hmm, I guess I don't completely disagree, and clearly the current situation is nuanced and textured and can't be brought down to one or two issues, but it does seem to me that the combination of the war and Bush's Ownership Society initiative (http://tr.im/yb) to encourage more home ownership are good places to look for consequences of the kind of poor governance, leadership and corruption that characterizes this administration. - Chris Messina

Yeah, the war was priced in to the stock market long ago. - Alex Scoble

Does anyone remember bush's proposal to invest social security in a total stock market fund? It would have been optional but would still lead to cries for bailouts as soon as the market dipped. Scary. - Mark Collier

Actually, folks, this is fundamentally a result of systemically mispriced risk. Why was the risk in all of this mispriced? Because Congress compelled the financial industry to extend "ownership" to people who could not rightfully afford it. It really has very little to do with Bush - sorry. Once the incentive structure was put in place, the financial markets did what they always do - try to make a buck into ten bucks. But the very nature of the situation was wrong, and you're witnessing the aftermath. - Forrest Cox