On Nov. 25, 2008, the Federal Reserve launched the shot heard around the financial world.
The U.S. central bank announced it would start using digitally created money to buy mortgage debt in an effort to drive down interest rates and resuscitate a dead housing market.
Along with a series of cuts that ultimately would take short-term interest rates close to zero, the move was part of an ambitious gambit to take the country out of its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. It quickly expanded to the purchase of government bonds in a total of three rounds that spanned six years.
