TG: I would go one step further and look back on two decades of extremely loose monetary policy as well. Not only has the FED completely abandoned its core mandate in terms of currency protection and fiscal responsibility, it threw untold gallons of fuel on the fire.
You want to talk about “entitlement”: There was no way in hell that Greenspan was going to allow the natural market forces to play their part and correct (thereby causing the US Consumer pain and discomfort). Nope. He was going to game the system through currency and interest rate manipulation.
While 2003 was undoubtedly an important year, this situation has been building since the 1970s.