by Nick Beams
World Socialist Web Site
It is not a question of if there will be another severe crisis in the US and international financial system but rather when and how it might take place. And a related question now arising is whether in such a crisis, the US central bank will provide dollars to other central banks to try and alleviate it.
In the past, such a question would never have been raised. But such is the turmoil in trade relations, the financial system and international relations more broadly, set off by the actions of the Trump administration—amid the realization that the “norms” of the post-war order have been shattered—it is now being asked.
In 2008, the global financial system came to the abyss with the collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers and the revelation that the parasitic, and in some cases outright criminal practices of major US banks and financial houses that had characterized the sub-prime mortgage market, were rife throughout the financial system.