For those who wish to remember what the White House website used to look like, there is the archived website from Pres. Bush's term. It's frozen in time, but still refreshing to revisit, especially for those of us on this Forum who would give anything to have him still at the helm, guiding our wounded ship of state.
From the visit of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip to the White House in 2007
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The WH website today is factual, businesslike and cold.
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From Pres. and Mrs. Bush's visit to the UK last year
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A glance backward:
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*snip*
"The Fed, meanwhile, was supposed to be a lender of last resort to banks. It wasn't built to fix all these problems, and the snowballing crisis worried Fed officials.
"This financial episode is one where a huge part of the problem is outside of the banking system," said Frederic Mishkin, a Columbia University professor who recently left the Federal Reserve as a governor. "We're in a whole new ball game."
On Thursday, Messrs. Paulson and Bernanke decided to ask Congress for authority to buy up hundreds of billions of dollars of assets. In the afternoon, Mr. Paulson, Mr. Bernanke and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox briefed President Bush for 45 minutes.
Mr. Paulson told Mr. Bush that markets were frozen and many different types of assets had become illiquid, or untradeable. Messrs. Paulson and Bernanke told the president that the situation was "extraordinarily serious," according to a senior administration official.
"We need to do what it takes to solve this problem," Mr. Bush replied.
That evening, during the meeting with Congressional leaders, Mr. Bernanke gave a "chilling" description of current conditions, according to one person present. He described the frozen credit markets, busted commercial-paper markets and attacks on investment banks. The financial condition of some major institutions was "uncertain," he said."
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This is a MUST READ article, giving an historical timeline of events that led up to today's mess. I urge you all to read the whole thing. Makes you wonder about the possibility that motivated monied wizards/entities behind the curtain were manipulating the catastrophic fall of the dominoes. Not saying that happened, only that it could be a possibility. I'm still mind boggled at the speed and depth of the devastation, coincidentally just mere weeks before the election. God help us.