WASHINGTON (AFP) - Fears of a global financial collapse have cast a dark cloud over U.S. President George W. Bush's final months in office, after years in which he claimed the U.S. economy as a major success story.

The president, who leaves office January 20, reportedly discussed the crisis Tuesday with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and other advisors at the White House.
With global shares tumbling and some evoking the 1929 stock market crash that ushered in the Great Depression, Bush has vowed to ""minimize the impact"" of the Lehman collapse on the economic health of Main Street.
""In the short run, adjustments in the financial markets can be painful,"" Bush said Monday. ""In the long run, I'm confident that our capital markets are flexible and resilient and can deal with these adjustments.""
Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain, and his running mate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, have charged that official Washington was ""asleep at the switch"" as the crisis gathered steam.
Asked Monday whether Bush bore any blame, Paulson told reporters: ""I'm playing the hand that was dealt me"" and stressed ""I'm going to leave history to the historians and focus on what we need to do today.""
The U.S. Federal Reserve on Tuesday agreed an unprecedented 85-billion-dollar rescue loan for troubled insurance giant American International Group only a day after the failure of investment giant Lehman Brothers and the sale of Wall Street rival Merrill Lynch.
The White House has also been grappling with sluggish growth and unemployment, which jumped to a five-year high of 6.1 percent in August.
Nor is the economy the only headache for Bush, who faces a deep chill in relations with Russia over the war in Georgia; tensions with Pakistan over U.S. military operations along its border with Afghanistan; and uncertainty about a deal to dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons programs.
Efforts to convince Iran to give up its own nuclear program have yet to pay off; Bush aides say prospects are slim for Israelis and Palestinians to reach a White House-sought peace deal in 2008; and the president has been roundly condemned for not being bolder in confronting climate change.
Five and a half years after the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, Bush's ""surge"" of troops has brought violence down, but aides warn gains are fragile, and the next president is set to inherit more than 100,000 U.S. troops there.
White House aides point to solid relations with China, India, and Brazil; unprecedented counter-terrorism cooperation with Europe; U.S. cooperation with key partners on Iraq and North Korea, and the absence of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil since the September 11, 2001 strikes and subsequent anthrax mailings.
They also hold out hope that the U.S. Congress will approve a landmark civilian nuclear cooperation deal with India, as well as free trade pacts with South Korea and Colombia.
Still, the list highlights how Bush's term, as Ghana's president told him at the White House on Monday, has been defined by ""mind-boggling and hair-raising"" challenges -- right up to his ""lame-duck"" status as a short-timer.
It's that ""end of term"" dynamic that the vastly unpopular U.S. president's aides blame privately for a diplomatic spat with Bolivia, which last week expelled the U.S. ambassador to La Paz.
Venezuela ordered out the U.S. ambassador there in solidarity, Honduras piled on by refusing to accept the credentials of a new U.S. envoy, and Nicaragua's president decided to duck a regional summit Bush is due to attend.
""The president has established strong relations with the countries of Latin America in the last eight years. Unfortunately, Venezuela and Bolivia are more interested in using the U.S. as an excuse so they don't have to confront their own problems,"" said spokesman Gordon Johndroe.