That’s the understatement of the year, to be sure.

But hearing Bush speak Friday morning was not exactly a “We have nothing to fear but fear itself” moment.

Bush tried to be reassuring.

He said, “Fellow citizens: We can solve this crisis—and we will.”

He added: “We know what the problems are, we have the tools we need to fix them, and we’re working swiftly to do so.”

But it’s unclear whether Bush and his team have wrapped their arms around the problem yet, though he outlined several steps his Administration has taken.

For instance, he didn’t talk about the lack of regulations in the derivative markets, which has had so much to do with the avalanche of bad paper on Wall Street.

He didn’t acknowledge the need to re-regulate Wall Street.

And he didn’t offer anything by way of an underlying stimulus plan.

This is crucial, as Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy research note. And we should listen to them, since they predicted the bursting of the housing bubble long before almost anyone else.

“This stimulus is essential for counteracting the sharp falloff in consumption that is following the loss of $5 trillion in housing wealth and President Bush's scare tactics for promoting his bank bailout,” they write. “The stimulus should be designed to quickly boost demand. In the United States, this can best be done by aiding state and local governments, extending unemployment benefits, tax rebates to low income individuals, accelerating infrastructure spending and support for energy conserving retrofits of homes and businesses.”

There was no hint of that from Bush. Instead, he praised his “outstanding economic team.” But, as Baker and Weisbrot note, this team “failed to recognize the seriousness of the problem, understating the size of the problem at every step.”

All but phoning it in, Bush ended with a ridiculous bromide: “Our economy is innovative, industrious, and resilient because the American people, who make up our economy, are innovative, industrious, and resilient.”

But the American people aren’t running our economy. The Treasury Secretary, the Fed chairman, and the financial institutions have been running our economy—into the ground.

Because Bill Clinton, Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Phil Gramm, and Alan Greenspan deregulated the financial industry, because traders went wild as Greenspan blew air into the stock bubble and the housing bubble, and because Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson put their hands over their ears instead of listening to the rumbling earthquake, the world economy is crumbling.

And there’s pain all around.

People in the middle and upper middle class have seen their 401ks crash literally overnight, and with them their hopes of retirement.

And those who retired early with the expectation of decent investment earnings are now stuck in a real bind.

For the poor and lower middle class, the pain is even greater.

If they bought a home, they may be losing it now.

If they’ve got a job, that may be going, too, and with it their ability to pay rent or have health care.

Many small businesses are likely to collapse right after Christmas because of poor holiday sales.

As a result, unemployment may climb to 8 percent next year. Hunger and homelessness will rise.

Oh, the rich are taking a hit, too. They aren’t as wealthy as they used to be a month ago—or even a week ago.

But there is pain—and then there is pain.

From a moral, human perspective, we need to get financial help to those who are suffering the most.

This also happens to be the best fiscal policy.

Yes, Bush must resolve this credit crisis. But he also must secure the foundations of the economy.

This will require more deficit spending—which may be unpopular, since Bush has taken us so deep into debt already with his Iraq War and the initial bailout.

But we’ll need to go deeper in before we can find our way out. And Bush failed even to foreshadow that.

Maybe he’s leaving it for his successor.

But we need action now.