…tunately, despite Bernanke’s efforts, the banks responded to this crisis by reducing their lending. Some argue that they instead availed themselves of an arbitrage opportunity, borrowing funds from the Fed at virtually no interest and using those funds to invest in Treasury bonds which, though yielding low interest at the time, still yielded higher interest than the Fed was charging (Congressional Oversight Panel, 2009). Some argue that this is why the banks performed so well whil…