"We are all in this together"

I do not profess to be an expert, but I would like to tell you my view of the causes of the current financial situation her in the U.K.  When I was young, there was a common saying, and it was: "America sneezes, Europe catches the cold". 
This is relevant as I think the roots of the problem started in the U.S.A.  Do you all remember the term 'sub-prime mortgages'?  These were mortgages sold to individuals who little or no chance of paying the loan back.  Why were these sold?  The reason was greed, the salesmen would be paid commission for every loan that they wrote up.  These mortgages were then combined together in such a complicated way that even some individual banks financial experts did not understand how they worked, and the were then traded around the world.  When the people that owed the money on the mortgage defaulted, the financial products lost value, and the banks that bought them lost money.  Some banks around the world lost so much money that they folded.  In the U.K. these banks were bailed out by the Government.  The idea of giving the banks money was so that they could lend it to small businesses and therefore stimulate the economy, instead they 'sat on it' and re-capitalised .  Gordon Brown got this so drastically wrong that he lost the next election.  Consequently, there was not much money to pay for things and things had to be cut back, and the current Government have to be watched like the proverbial hawk so that they do not sneak any of their more 'hair-brained ideas' under the radar.
That, as I understand it, is how we came to be in such a mess.  My wife's job has gone, but she has got another one, and my job will end in July, for a number of other reasons (see later postings).  So things in the Ryan household will have to change.