A rather different vision of the balance of power is suggested by those moments in 2016 when the financial world waited with bated breath to learn the size of the settlement that the US Department of Justice was going to impose on Deutsche Bank for mortgage fraud. Deutsche’s financial condition was understood to be so fragile that the US authorities held its fate in their hands.43 A bank that for more than a century had been a powerhouse of Germany Inc. was at the mercy of the United States. In the wake of the crisis it was the last European investment bank with any global standing.
