I don't believe we're right now in a downward spiraling financial fiasco. We've been in a downward spiraling financial fiasco for 3 years but most intensely for about 10 months now.

It's not just the oil crisis.

It's not just the credit crisis.

It's not just the foreclosure orgy.

It's not just the financial burden of the Iraq War.

It really wasn't 9/11 either.

Yes, all of these have accelerated the crisis. Yet the crisis was here all along.

It is called Trickle Down Economics:

Today "trickle-down economics" is most closely identified with the economic policies known as Reaganomics or supply-side economics. Originally, there was a great deal of support for tax reform; there was a dual problem that loopholes and tax shelters create a bureaucracy (private sector and public sector) and that relevant taxes are thus evaded. Reagan repeatedly cut taxes overall by modest amounts, but dramatically de-progressivized the income tax system, cutting the marginal tax rates on the highest-income tax bracket of joint-filed couples from 70% to 28%.^[4] In order to spur business, Bill Clinton lowered taxes for the wealthiest percentile by 2.6%.^[5] In the early days of 2001 George W. Bush lowered taxes again for the wealthy by 4%. To this day, the capital gains tax rate is currently an all-time low at 15%. ^[6]A major feature of these policies was the reduction of tax rates on capital gains, corporate income, and higher individual incomes, along with the reduction or elimination of various excise taxes. David Stockman, who as Reagan's budget director championed these cuts but then became skeptical of them, told journalist William Greider that the term "supply-side economics" was used to promote a trickle-down idea.^[7]

You have Ronald Reagan to thank for what's happening today. Oh, and give Bill Clinton some props for being the Democrat who most closely guarded the GOPs economic mantra.