Nobel Prize Winner Stiglitz Fingers War as Cause of Slowdown

It's an interesting theory. Basically, he believes that in order to cope with the financial drain from the war, the Fed was forced to slash interest rates, leading to a speculative bubble, higher energy prices, and reckless lending.

While I agree as to the consequences of the the Fed's (really Alan "Bubbles" Greenspan's) policies, I do not think that the ultra low interest rates were from the war.

They were a function of Greenspan wanting to remain Fed chair when dealing with a president who had publicly stated his dislike of him during the campaign in 2000.

Bush blamed Greenspan for his dad loosing in 2002, you may recall McCain joking about doing the "Weekend at Bernies" thing if "Bubbles" died, and so when Bush came in, he whored himself to Bush and His Evil Minions^™.

The Fed was slashing rates before 911, and even more between 911 and the Iraq invasion.