After hearing of the $700 billion bailout, it's hard to imagine a crevice the world's financial trouble won't seep into, though this one does take some thinking.

One of Britain’s leading exports, the Mary Poppins-esque Nanny, is also facing tough times as one brokerage firm after another collapses. What was once a highly in-demand necessity is now turning into a rare luxury item for those that can still afford a pro to take care of their moppets. And it seems as though, like everything else, a spoonful of sugar won’t do the trick to make this economic medicine go down.

One London-based Nanny service employee, Kate Baker, said of the current situation: “The problems are just starting. In the last week or two I have started getting calls from nannies saying one or both of their employers have lost their jobs and so they have too.” Thousands in the London financial district are either already unemployed or projected to be so in the near future and many are saying there aren’t any magical umbrellas floating on the horizon any time soon.

Although there are cheaper nannies to be found in Eastern Europe, which in the past four years has supplied a less expensive substitute, the British nanny is still the gold standard. Or as Baker says: “The whole world still comes to Britain shopping for the Great British Nanny.” How big of a bag of tricks will the world's economies have to have to make that shopping possible again?

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