Over the years, people had become more used to borrowing money (getting credit). The banks foolishly did not check to see if the borrowers could pay it back.
By 2007 many people in the USA could not pay back the money they had borrowed to buy houses. Panic set in as banks realised how much money they would lose. They stopped lending money (the Credit Crunch), house prices fell in the UK as well as the USA, and suddenly many people realised their jobs were at risk.
