All that hope for change, though, dissipated in the midst of a recession—one like no other since the Great Depression of the 1930s—which had begun under President George W. Bush. It had already destroyed twenty-two trillion dollars of wealth, fueled and entrenched double-digit unemployment for black people, and led to economic stimulus packages that were targeted at banks and other financial institutions whose greed and recklessness had put the global economy in a tailspin.
