Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World

by Adam Tooze

Quantitative easing, or QE, is generally thought of as the quintessential “American” policy, the symbol of the Fed’s adventurousness. It would earn Bernanke regular scolding by conservative policy makers in Europe. But after what we have already said, it will come as no surprise that 52 percent of the mortgage-backed securities sold to the Fed under QE were sold by foreign banks, with Europeans far in the lead. Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse were the two largest sellers, outdoing all their American rivals by a healthy margin. Barclays, UBS and Paribas came in eighth, ninth and tenth. Having kept open the basic institutions of transatlantic shadow banking during the most acute phase of the crisis in 2008, the Fed now worked hand in glove with the European megabanks to unwind the transatlantic balance sheet.

Jerks