The global financial crisis of 2008 was the worst of its kind since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It began with the collapse of subprime mortgage markets in the USA and led to the failure and subsequent merger and/or government bailout of leading American financial institutions and enterprises such as Bear Stearns, AIG, the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA), the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC), Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Ford Motor, etc. The financial crisis rapidly spread to other countries around the world as the credit crunch began to hit the ‘real’ economy by the end of that fateful year.