Although the United States did not suffer a destabilizing failure of foreign banks, many rode out the crisis only with the help of extraordinary support from home- and host-country  13  Ben S. Bernanke, Carol Bertaut, Laurie Pounder DeMarco, and Steven Kamin (2011), “International Capital Flows and the Returns to Safe Assets in the United States, 2003–2007”, International Finance Discussion Papers Number 1014 (Washington: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, February), www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/ifdp/2011/1014/ifdp1014.htm.
An important lesson to be learned from recent developments is that a currency union in the end also amounts to some form of political union. This understanding has led to a revision of the European economic governance framework. Stricter rules and the more immediate threats of financial sanctions were formulated to prevent unsustainable public finances and macroeconomic imbalances in the future.