QE and low rates has been bad for the banks, in a perspective of having kept them all alive. Think about the Euro crisis as another example. Zero rates and EC

QE and low rates has been bad for the banks, in a perspective of having kept them all alive. Think about the Euro crisis as another example. Zero rates and ECB buying all the sov and fin debt bailed out banks that would have gone under. If 30% of the banking system collapsed, then surviving institutions would probably have profitability consistent with historical rates. But keep everyone alive, and bring rates to zero, and you squeeze margins both with excess competition, and compressing the diff between the rates they lend and the rates they borrow.