it's odd that so many people are treating this week as the first anniversary of the global financial crisis. they're using the collapse of lehman brothers as the beginning. but that happened several weeks after the bailout of fannie and freddie, and those bailouts came months after the bailout of bear stearns.
i would think it's the rescue of bear stearns that would be the real indicator that this recession is something different from what we've seen in the past 70 years. i realize at the time, they thought the bailout would be a one-shot deal, once they put the bear back on its feet everything could go back to normal. but that proved to be a mistake. the moment that you realize the problem is more serious is not the same as the moment that the problem became serious.
