Why did we ignore this recession for over a year?

[kentuck]

Would we not have been better off if we had tackled the problem earlier on? Did we really have to wait until September of last year for the whole system to collapse before anyone recognized anything was wrong? One day in September, out of the the blue, George W Bush and Henry Paulson come out to tell us that our entire economic system would collapse if we did not give them $700 billion dollars immediately. With no strings attached! WTF!

So now, everybody is willing to admit that we are deep into a recession. Why did it take so long? I realize that there was an election coming up and nobody wanted to talk about it before the election was over, especially the Republicans. But it seems like we are paying a high price for all that dilly-dallying in the last year? Now it is Obama's "depression".