The financial crisis of 2008 also produced an economic collapse sharp and deep enough to threaten the modern trading system. Ever since the devastation of the 1930s, the fear has been that economic hardship would cause trade barriers to rocket out of control. Yet the last global recession turned out to produce a shockingly low level of protection. Trade barriers did not shoot up, in part because of the domestic policy response of the U.S. and other governments: large government spending programs, central bank interventions, and flexible exchange rates that ensured that the dollar and euro especially did not remain excessively strong. These policies were significantly different from those that greeted the Great Depression.