Basically, the Fed issued a bunch of promises of positive growth in order to get businesses or people with money (cash) to dump that money into the banks to increase liquidity if I'm understanding this right.
The financial market actually only gets into trouble when money (capital reserves) get low in comparison to balances/liabilities. "Money now" being in the right places is more important in keeping things going smoothly than "Money Later" being dumped into the market.
"Money Now" shortages cause bank runs. "Money Later" (Treasury Bonds) excesses tend to attract "Money Now" when people want somewhere safe to plop "Money Now" to get back "Money Later". The extra "Money Now" allows interest rates on lending to drop.
As I understand it, low "Money Now" supplies are responded to by lending at increased rates, because the bank in question can't just issue loans without the capital to service them.
Or something like that.
Shit, I don't even know if I managed to help. I just spent a week pouring over economics stuff to try to make sense of it all, and I'm still not sure I'm grokking it.
Which is horrifying because it means it’s being driven by total ignorance.
>why do we even have a system that needs so many bailouts
Overnight lending is not a bailout, ffs. You can do the same thing as an individual with a credit card, a payday loan, etc.