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Do you know why the COVID crisis elevated M2 so much more in the US than in the eurozone?

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I haven’t looked, but is that the result of QE (i.e., look at M2 minus the base)? I don’t think the ECB grew its balance sheet as much. If it’s the other components that grew, all I can think of is the housing market probably resulted in some decent debt growth.

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That is the question, it’s either due to QE, performed in a different way; or, US banks extended loans guaranteed by the government which boosted M2. The latter didn’t happen in Europe as far as I know.

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I don’t think QE does anything, so I haven’t paid attention. But from what I remember from charts from other people, Fed ran down its balance sheet and then re-expanded, ECB’s was already big going into COVID, so it didn’t do as much.

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If the Fed buys a bond from a non-bank a deposit (M2 up) is created no?

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Can you explain how "things got messed up in 2020" in Canada? A quick internet search didn't turn up anything helpful for me.

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They started quantitative easing, which moved settlement balances from zero to positive.

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