And yet one should read history and theory carefully: preserving financial institutions is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. It is the flow of credit that is important, and the reason that the failure of banks during the Great Depression was important is that they were involved in determining creditworthiness; they were the repositories of information necessary for the maintenance of the flow of credit.
但是人们应该认真地阅读历史和理论：保护金融机构本身并不是目的所在，而是达到目的的一种方式。重要的是要促使信贷的流动，而大萧条时期银行的倒闭之所以显得那么重要是因为它们涉及到决定信用的可靠性。它们是保持信贷流动所需要的信息的荟萃地。