On Bush: Yes and no.
Where his Treasury Secretaries are concerned, he had two capable men who were telling us early that the explosion of debt was unsustainable and that the economic figures were not adding up. So Bush sacked both of them, and then hired Paulson, the former Goldman head.
Paulson is perhaps one of the worst people who anyone could have hired as SecTreas. Conflicts of interests up the whazzoo.
The “crisis” under Paulson was basically a planned crisis.....those in the know knew well this was coming but the idea was how to use it to spread the effects in such a way as to position both the US and EU on the track of consolidating their monies while at the same time managing the fallout and affects on the citizens to prevent full-blown rebellion on the streets.
Europe's banking system was set up with investing in these bad mortgages and deliberately so...Europe fell for the bait and the game was on. “Explanations” given to the populaces have all been about calming the public across the globe enough to continue the International Powers Agenda of uniting monies, trade etc. all under a specific group who will oversee it all. Timing is important and we consistently see various “stalls” while things take shape.
Examples of which the IMF and The G-20 meetings know well it's simply a matter of time to get all the ducks in a row...they recently met yet again and the results remain that the buzz word is “stall” some more. But all know the time is coming where they will indeed appoint a central governance over the major monetary systems...and most have openly called for this.