[lbo-talk] Credit crunch a myth?

[Jordan Hayes]

>     [E.g.,] the media, [Dean Baker] argues, "are blaming the economic
> collapse on a 'credit crunch' instead of the more obvious problem that
> consumers just lost $6 trillion of housing wealth and another $8
> trillion of stock wealth" ...

I'm less interested in whether one or the other clearly explains what 
happened (face it: the media are lousy at it) than I am in the question 
of was at least part of this engineered as a data-point-in-a-series:

   "It's a reasonable conclusion; this is an administration that

    used the threat of thousands of al-Qaida sleeper cells in the

    United States to sell Congress on the Patriot Act, the specter

    of mushroom clouds rising over American cities to push through

    the Iraq war resolution and the supposedly imminent crash of

    the Social Security system to push for privatizing Americans'

    retirement savings."

It's certainly true that we live in a world where public opinion is 
regularly manipulated, but doesn't it trouble you (Doug) that the last 
half of 2008 was the exact moment that this situation unravelled?

/jordan