By
Neil Irwin and
Michael Birnbaum, Published: September 15, 2011 | Updated: Friday, September 16, 4:01 AMThe Washington Post Worried that a mounting debt crisis in Europe could trip up the global economy, the Federal Reserve opened its vault Thursday to the central banks of other countries in an effort to head off a crippling shortage of dollars.
The main recipient of the Fed’s money is the European Central Bank, which will in turn extend dollar loans to banks in the nations that use the euro currency. Those banks do significant business in dollars, for instance making loans to customers operating around the world, and have been finding it harder to raise dollars from anxious investors.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...central-bank/2011/09/15/gIQA2YcpVK_story.html