How did American feel four years ago, Part I

Republican candidates have been asking, "Do you feel better off than you did four years ago?"

This is September, 2012, so it makes sense to wonder how Americans felt in September, 2008. Here is a business summary from The New York Times archives for that month.

"A housing boom in America and a number of European countries was followed by a bust and then a market tailspin that created the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

"In the United States, the housing market peaked in 2006. The first sign of serious trouble on Wall Street came in June 2007, when the investment bank Bear Stearns shuttered two of its hedge funds that had lost deeply in the mortgage market.

"Over the next year, regulators scrambled to contain a steadily widening spiral of distress that in September 2008 emerged as a full-fledged global financial panic. As hundreds of billions in mortgage-related investments went bad, mighty investment banks that once ruled high finance crumbled or reinvented themselves as commercial banks. The nation's largest insurance company and largest savings and loan were seized by the government. Only the passage by Congress of a $700 billion bailout plan in October 2008 and actions by the Federal Reserve to pump money into the system headed off a full-scale meltdown.

"But while financial Armageddon was avoided, the crisis spread around the globe, toppling banks across Europe and driving countries from Iceland to Pakistan to seek emergency aid from the International Monetary Fund. A vicious circle of tightening credit, reduced demand and rapid job cuts took hold, and the world fell into recession."

As this globe-girdling skirting-Armageddon business news was being reported in global media that September four years ago, the Bush Administration was advancing into its last three months of his eight years in office.