Need a reason to explain the massive central bank intervention from China, to Japan, Switzerland, the ECB, England and all the way to the US? Forbes may have one explanation: "It appears that a big European bank got close to failure last night.  European banks, especially French banks, rely heavily on funding in the wholesale money markets.  It appears that a major bank was having difficulty funding its immediate liquidity needs. The cavalry was called in and has come to the successful rescue." Granted the post is rather weak on factual backing and is mostly  speculative, but it would certainly make sense. That said, it harkens back to our original question: just how bad was the situation if the global central banking cabal had to intervene all over again, and just what was not being told to the general public? Lastly, and most important, slapping liquidity bandaids on solvency gangrenes does nothing but buy a few days at most. Furthermore, we now expect the stigmata associated with borrowing from the Fed to haunt each and every European bank as vigilantes will now use the weekly ECB update on borrowings from the Fed as a signal to hone in on this and that weak Italian and French, pardon, European bank.