Crony capitalism describes any situation where success in business depends on close relationships between business people and government officials.<p>Over the last decade, top financial firms have succeeded due to central bank policies that the firms themselves have been part of shaping.  For example estimates are that &quot;too big to fail&quot; banks make an extra $34 billion per year off of the implicit guarantee from the federal government.<p>Moving on, McKinsey studied the effects of the US government policy of quantitative easing.  See <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mckinsey.com&#x2F;insights&#x2F;economic_studies&#x2F;qe_and_ultra_low_interest_rates_distributional_effects_and_risks" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mckinsey.com&#x2F;insights&#x2F;economic_studies&#x2F;qe_and_ult...</a> for the full study.  The bottom line is that it is estimated to have directly enriched private companies to the tune of $460 billion dollars (about a third of which went to banks), and cost American households $360 billion.  That&#x27;s a pretty large and direct transfer of wealth!<p>This study examines how much room Europe has to pursue similar policies.  JP Morgan is effectively telling the central banks, &quot;Here is how much money we think you could afford to give us.&quot;  But doing so in a sufficiently opaque way that it isn&#x27;t obvious that that is what they said.