It started in the United States in 2007 after a housing bubble burst with people unable to pay securities. This led to financial institutions who had unwisely given credit going broke in 2008 with a big run on merchant banks taking place in September 2008. Stock markets around the world fell. The problems had by then spread to Western Europe and Japan. To make it worse, Governments extended debt to bail out banks and for largely ill-considered stimulus packages. Unemployment rose to ten percent or more in much of the developed world. High levels of debt led many Governments to get in financial difficulties leading to austerity packages. It will take a while for developed countries to get out of this with some economists predicting it will last for a decade.
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