The fear was great when Obama took office, he did the proper thing by not fanning the flames of fear and had the fear mongers on the right cooperated we might very well be further on the road to recovery. Because the right is bereft of ideas, fear is their greatest tool so any course of action was met with a cacophony of "Socialism", "Marxism" and concerns about the President's birth certificate or religion. The same right which supported tax cuts and two wars off budget now worry about spending. Hypocrisy thy name is Republican.
Only an idiot would have suggested to the American public, "hey folks, it's only just begun. Protect your money, only buy essentials and get all you can out of your bank before it disappears".
Let's be clear, the Great Recession occured on the watch of George W. Bush. The near economic collapse occured in October 2008 before President Obama has been elected and while George W. Bush was still POTUS. The Great Recession has many fathers, but the immutable fact remains - no matter how often the right lies and blames others - on the watch of George W. Bush.
I guess you can make the point that the Great Recession did start during W's "watch", Catcher but to blame HIM when the Democrats controlled the House and repeatedly ignored Bush's calls to fix the problems in the housing market especially with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is kind of amusing. How much less severe would this crisis have been if Barney Frank and Chris Dodd hadn't pooh poohed W's concerns as baseless and actually done something about them?
You, "guess" I can make the point that the Great Recession started in on Bush's watch? Off course it did, and Bush as well as many many others knew the housing situtation was not sustainable.
To suggest two Democrats has so much power that the POTUS and his economic advisers couldn't do anything is not only disengenuous but borders on mendacity.
Bush wanted war and got it. He sent his entire team out on the Sunday Morning news shows to beat the drums of war - Rice, Rumfeld, Powell, Cheney - all warned of the danger Saddam presented to our nation. Knowing the economy was to be challenged by the housing situation we heard nothing from Bush on the issue.
btw, the Republicans controlled the House from January 1993 until January 2007 and again from January 2011 until today ( the 104th Congress to the 109th Congress, and now the 112th Congress which may go down as the most inept, ineffective and ideological in our nation's history).