None of the central bankers had faced an international financial crisis before; they therefore had to make things up as they went along. In so doing they made two mistakes. Given the scale of the problem, they came up with far too little money; and believing that it was necessary to put together as international a consortium as possible, they did not act quickly enough. For all the frantic telephone calls, it took them three weeks to drum up the money, and then only came up with $15 million.
