Financial Crisis 101

The first step toward grasping the bailout plan is to understand how we got in this mess in the first place. Ali says it started with three basic assumptions about the American economy: homes will increase in value over time, wages will go up over time and investments in the stock market will go up over time. "Very rarely do all three not go up at the same time," he says. "So we thought that things will be better for us financially year after year." The banks encouraged that concept, Ali says, because the more the American people spend, the more money banks make.
 
Ali says that since Americans thought their finances would increase over the years, they spent as if that money was guaranteed. "We all lived a little beyond our means and then a lot beyond our means," he says. "Now, our country, our people, our banks and our government are all heavily, heavily indebted and the money is running tight."