During 2008-09, the federal government extended multiple guarantee programs in an effort to restore the financial market and contain the panic and crisis in the market. For example, the Treasury provided a temporary guarantee program for the money market funds, the FDIC decided to stand behind...

When President Obama took office in 2009, the Treasury focused on restarting bank lending and repairing the ability of the banking system as a whole to perform the role of credit intermediation. In order to do so, the Treasury needed to raise public confidence that banks had sufficient buffers...