Quantitative Easing by Another Name

The halcyon days of quantitative easing made us all forget one simple truth. That in the annals of financial history, bank runs are numerous and inveterate. Like the coming of spring or another movie from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

Except that the Great Financial Crisis did in practice, if not in law, change the game for all time. There are now 4 unimpeachable megabanks enameled with Too-Big-Too-Fail status and unlimited deposit insurance. And there are all the other banks, to which depositors are merely unsecured lenders. But even then, The Fed and the Treasury are clothed in immense power, and can intervene in any financial calamity if they deem it to be systemically important. 

Thus, in the wake of even Silicon Valley Bank's collapse, they created the Bank Term Funding Program or BTFP. Do I really know what its provisions are? Of course not. I'm on Twitter too much to know the details.

But we must ask the question, is this just Quantitative Easing by another name? And in the end, do all crises lead to unlimited easing by one road or another? For there is one thing that the events of 2008 made impossible. The collapse of collateral anywhere in the West.