Correlation Does Not Equal Causation, Ricky

Rick Santorum seems to think high gas prices caused the housing depression and the recession, and so since Obama is causing high gas prices, he's going to cause another recession.  Of course, Rick Santorum wouldn't know his own ass from one of Saturn's moons, so it's all good.

Here’s what Dean Baker, who was miles ahead of most economists in giving early warnings about the housing bubble, said about Santorum’s theory.

“It doesn’t fit is the basic story. It doesn’t fit from the word go,” he told me by phone Tuesday. “[Housing] prices peaked in mid ‘06, dribbling downward, one percent a month by early ‘07 then to two percent a month by the end of ‘07.”

Energy prices, by contrast, “started climbing in late ‘07, but didn’t really go through the roof until late ‘08,” Baker said. 

In other words, high energy prices were not the cause of the housing bubble unless there's time travel involved.  And President Obama had nothing to do with the financial crisis unless again, time travel is involved and he was really running Bush's Fed policy and the banks in 2004-2008.  Your chart:

 

 

So back here in reality, it was roughly 8 years of Bush policies that broke our economy but good in 2008.  Of course, Santorum wasn't speaking to actual people, he was speaking to Republican primary voters, who are apparently the most gullible and/or stupid people on Earth.

After all, the number one thing on their mind is "beating President Obama."