Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World

by Adam Tooze

But whichever metrics we use, it is clear that there had never before been anything so extensive or massive in scale. Commitments were made in excess of $7 trillion. The main mechanisms for intervention were fourfold: (1) loans to banks; (2) recapitalization; (3) asset purchases; and (4) state guarantees for bank deposits, bank debts or even for the entire balance sheet. Everywhere the crisis struck, states were forced to take some combination of these measures. The agencies involved were central banks, finance ministries and banking regulators. What summary statistics cast as cool enumerations were, in fact, frantic, improvised solutions that emerged from barely coordinated sessions of all-day, all-night problem solving. As the crisis intensified it put the financial and political resilience of states to the test. Broadly speaking, this produced four types of outcome, which reflect the degree of immersion in global finance, the resources of the states at risk, the shape of the governing elite and the balance of power within the financial sector itself.

Good summary