Let’s take a look at financial intermediation and the financial crisis of 2007–2009. Using the FRED economic database (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/), search for “all sectors total loans”; you should find a series, All Sectors; Total Loans; Liability. This series is all the lending in the U.S. economy from banks and all other financial intermediaries. When you graph the series you will see that it increases quite smoothly, rising almost without exception every single year from 1945 to 2008. In the third quarter of 2008 the series begins to drop tremendously, and in an unprecedented way this is the financial crisis. 

a. At the peak, in the third quarter of 2008, how much was being lent in the U.S. economy? [Hint: Be careful of the units. The data is given in millions of millions; a million million is a trillion.]

b. In the third quarter of 2011 how much was being lent in the U.S. economy? 

c. In the space of just three years approximately how much lending disappeared from the U.S. economy?