if bush caused the recession--then how come it is a GLOBAL RECESSION?

It's NOT President Bush's recession. It belongs to ALL the bleeding heart lieberals around the world who are not and have not been fiscally responsible.

Bush and his band of thugs did nothing to help a situation that started with banking deregulation enacted during the Reagan administration. Instead, they made it worse with lax oversight and further deregulation. They were more than happy to keep interest rates artificially low in order to fuel the illusion of a strong economy. Of course, that economy was all smoke and mirrors, based on cheap money and grossly inflated real estate values. They needed to do this because after Bush was elected the first time, the internet bubble burst and the economy sucked - they needed a quick fix and something to brag about for election #2. In the meantime, shaky US mortgages were packaged and sold all over the world as securities. So when those securities went toxic, it was not just US companies that were holding the bag - it was worldwide. In addition, the US is still the world's #1 consumer nation. Once we stopped consuming, that affected all of those other nations who supplied us with our drugs - our cheap foreign made goods. When they could not sell to us, their economies suffered as well. So now it's a global mess. Thanks to Bush and the most incompetent administration since Hoover.

First of all - Bush didn't CAUSE the recession - the economy is cyclical - it will go up and down by itself.

What Bush did wrong was three things. The growth in between downturns was relatively short lived and quite slow. Crowding out private sector investment with deficits, encouraging runaway speculative investment rather than greenfield investment with his irresponsible taxcuts, ignoring rising poverty and falling median wages that debased our own consumer economy.

Second - even when things were OK Bush made not even a vague attempt at fiscal responsibility. Deficit spending during the poor times is fine - so long as you are paying it back during the good times. Instead of this Bush actually attacked the surplus left by Clinton using it as proof we should cut taxes (funny how it was enough of a real surplus to justify that argument in 2000 but now Republicans insist there never really was a surplus).

Finally the way markets were allowed to grow the bubble with no oversight or regulation (and Dems have to share some of the blame - but Bush was not even fullfilling the limited regulatory checks that were in place - so arguments that Dems stopped tighter regulation are groundless) just begged for that bubble to burst.

The result of this is a cyclical downturn becomes a major crisis. And making up more than 18% of the world's economy of course any economic impact in the USA is going to be felt around the world.

But then again - I suspect you really already know this and are not looking for information - just trying to make a cheap and baseless partisan point.

Because we have a WORLD ECONOMY, and the USA is the biggest player.....by far.

Take the Icelandic thing.....their banks crashed cause they were heavily leveraging mortgage backed securities.

The root cause was in the USA, and particularly in the shady mortgage deals....predatory lending, overly deregulated lending, non-conforming stuff. The disease spread throughout the world when all this crap debt was bundled up into Bonds/Securities as something better than junk.

Yes, the world was in the trap, but the trap was set in the USA. You can't blame Bush alone for it, but no one had more power than him to stop it.

Look.....in 2003 all 50 State Attorney Generals got together and asked the President to investigate predatory lending in the mortgage industry....and Bush didn't just side with the banks to refuse....he fought to make sure the AG's didn't do it on their own. Bush was an active participant in letting the mortgage industry run rampant.

Oh my..... I thought you knew.

The US is an investment center of the entire world. Mortgage backed securities were bundled together, promised a higher return than other investments, and were rated AAA by bond agencies.

Many a government use the US as an investment.

But to be fair... Bush wasn't the sole cause of this. The problem started in the late 90s.

It all started with the housing market.

banks giving hope to the dopes who thought they could afford a house.

Bush said in one of his speeches that he dreamed of the day when every American would own their own home. He never told em it was only till the end of his presidency. Lowered standards you need for high CRA scores.

Then all of a sudden every bank was trustworthy. they sold billions of predatory loans... Targeting people who didn't make enough money to buy a home. Well, till the point where they started selling off defaulted loans to high interest lenders and putting a bunch of morons in permanent debt. Now the banks expect to have that money some day. Gave out fat cash bonuses. Thought they had more money than they actually have because of their stupid *** flawed systems.... Scaring everyone with those "bad credit, you need to keep an eye on your credit" crap and sending spam mail to every ones mailboxes threatening that they are going to rate you as a bad person. I have bad credit cause of student loans... They're begging me to buy a car.

Whatever.

Globalization. Nations are highly invested in each others business. The collapse of the housing market and funds that invested heavily in the housing and mortgage markets in America has caused a cascade of economic failure in other countries as well. No country is an island anymore.

Because the unregulated processes of securitization took place on Wall Street, and such securities were sold around the world. Additionally, many foreign firms rely on the US as a market; the collapse in demand has decimated their economies.

In short, it's a global economy; the term for the phenomenon you mention is "contagion."

Because it's a global economy. All those other countries that are now having trouble are dependent on the US to buy products from them. We're broke. We can no longer buy anything, even the stuff made here. We're so broke, we can't even afford to pay attention...

Perhaps our Wall Street greed was rampant in others financial markets as well? If I recall correctly, it was the US Wall Street firms' "Financial Engineers" who invented the CDO which was AAA rated. This was a major factor in the mortgage meltdown which lead to the financial crisis. Many counties around the world invested in these toxic CDO's and lost their money.