What I remember was a perfect storm...

Well, it was on the horizon when Bush took office. The dot com era was the start. There were signs that it was a down turn was coming, but because Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors announced the "end of the business cycle", anyone who mentioned the signs of the downturn were accused of talking down the economy... (interesting reading
here)

Then, 9/11 happened. I was attending Baylor University at the time, and I had the unique perspective of being a student when it happened, and then went back and finished after a couple years' hiatus. What I learned was something that I missed almost immediately afterward because we were trying to figure out what happened. The next day, CNN & Reuters predicted a world wide recession. When I went back to school, I learned that was actually the point of the attacks. Whether or not that is the real motivation, I cannot say for sure, but if it weren't it was icing on the cake, I suppose.

Then, as the economy struggled to get back on track, we had the major real estate bubble burst and ridiculous mortgage situation that led us to where we are today... It wasn't any one thing, it was several negative events that brought us to where we are now.

When I first started university, they were predicting that by 2010 there would be more jobs than there were going to be people to fill them... How's that working out for everyone?