Speculation and Facts

The current price tag for the Wall Street bailout is between $500 billion and $1 trillion.

Here are two graphs of wage growth in the 90's and in the Bush years:

Here's a graph of cash flow from home equity lines of credit (HELOC). This is the cash that wasn't used for home renovation:

Those graphs are from a report from the Center for American Progress. The CAP is a progressive think-tank, but both of those graphs are from government data. And most reports I've read agree that the rising housing market allowed homeowners to refinance, take out HELOCs, and spend the cash. That party is over.

Comments

Is there a non partisan report on what, if anything, 9-11 did to the economy?

I have not seen a "real" analysis, but google spits back lots of stuff like this:

http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/aug02/homeland.asp

which is a high-level,not very heavily researched paper indicating that it wasn't as bad as initially feared. GDP actually grew in Q4 2001 vs the initial estimate that it would shrink.