"Can someone with a finance background check to see whether I understand the gist of this crisis?
Essentially, it’s a game of hot potato. The mortgage and credit industry created a huge lot of bad debt. They didn’t want this risk, so they sold it to investment banks as complicated financial instruments no one really understood. The financial companies passed this risk to their investors, who are in many cases cash rich foreign governments. Now, when everybody came to the realization this debt was not going to be paid, the US government didn’t want to pi$$ off the foreign governments paying for our little credit party, so they passed the “hot potato” to the U.S. taxpayer. The U.S. taxpayer, essentially powerless, now holds the potato. Is that about right?"

-> yes, buddy, that's exactly right.