Once again, President Obama has got his facts wrong. In Strasbourg the other day, Obama said that the recession was caused by the “reckless speculation of bankers,” particularly of American bankers, he implied. Not so. According to a convincing article by Alan Reynolds, of the Cato Institute, the recession was actually caused by high oil prices. “The years 1946 to 2007 saw dramatic spikes in the price of oil — each one of which was soon followed by recession,” he writes. That’s explains why the economic slowdown in the fourth quarter of last year was far deeper in Germany, Britain and Japan, to name three, than it was here.