I'm going to reply to this later (I'm fighting some client deadlines right now), but I want to say this for now, and leave a bookmark for later in the week.

- There's substantial evidence to support the position that the handling of this slow recovery has magnified the 2008 recession

- The actual sequence of events that led to the beginning of the recession in 2007 (which wasn't felt until 2008) is far more complicated than the four items you listed (I don't discount that at least 2 of them are major factors)

- Even liberal economists have done a 180 and have acknowledged the actual impact of the Community Reinvestment Act. I'm not going to pin every failure on Bush relaxing what were already lax standards, but with each passing year, as the dust settles more, financial experts are pointing back to this as an even bigger cause. (And note, I'm not saying bankers opposed what occurred during the Bush years. Many drank the Kool-Aid.)