Jim A

Consumption, Cacophony and Clarity

Good article documenting how the Wall Street debt machine has buried the consumer in debt that was rated AAA but was really junk. Before the subprime collapse private equity firms were working to take every company in the S&P 500 private, load them up with debt then take them back public for unsuspecting investors. Wall Street was turning investing in bonds and stocks into a non transparent fools game.
What you did not explain was why the Bush years have been so particularly bad compared to the Clinton years when taxes were higher. I would suggest that the accelerating losses of manufacturing jobs to China and the influx of Mexican illegals have sufficiently hollowed out the American economy that we are now collapsing inward.