[Symmetry]

Well, high energy prices meant that when Lehman Brothers was collapsing in late 2008 the most recent data the Fed had said that inflation was running above 5% and they thought they had to be careful about that. In reality deflation had already started but it takes months to collect and process the data to show that. Fears that injecting money into the financial system would further stoke inflation made the Fed ask for and receive the power to pay interest on banks' excess reserves, to encourage them not to lend out the newly created money. This had never been tried before, the Fed didn't have any experience using this tool, and it seems that they set the interest rate they were paying banks to not lend out their money much too high.