When the 2008 crisis hit, all four countries (Canada, Denmark, Ireland and Spain) were in relatively good shape fiscally. Within a few short years the public sector and its finances were not only implicated in, but also targeted as causing, a crisis of profligate spending. While the bulk of this book focuses on cutbacks, retrenchment and restructuring, in this chapter we expose the significant commitments to capital made in the name of austerity. Thus, the austerity era should not be confused with one where public sector spending is simply curtailed; instead state support for capital is often extended in new and familiar ways. In short, there is a lot of spending to account for in times of austerity.

In this chapter we: 1) provide an economic background for, and brief overview of, fiscal adjustments and drivers of spending in an austere time – these being related most closely to a) domestic economic imbalances, b) financial and housing bubbles, and c) exposure to international economic downturn; and 2) summarize the massive bank bailouts and aid to the financial sector that each country offered capital in the wake of the 2008 crisis (often institutionalized through public sector agencies). We begin with national snapshots of each country's fiscal–financial condition when the 2008 crisis first hit, weaving in, where appropriate, an historical overview. Next, we provide a thematic description of the nationspecific bailouts and banking sector guarantees (insulations): a) stimulus and guarantees (credit underwriting, insurance support and the like), b) bailouts (asset taking, nationalization), c) write-offs and taxpayer-borne risks, d) partnerships and privatization, and e) international pressures (from supranational institutions and investors).

We also note monetary policy exhaustion through rock-bottom interest rates (see Figures 3 and 4 in Chapter 1), exchange rate concerns (Canada, Denmark), and Eurozone monetary stability initiatives (Ireland, Spain). These themes are interrelated and overlap with national peculiarities and identifiably cross-cutting varieties. The chapter concludes with a comparison and analysis of similarities and differences, discussing the range of government and institutional responses and providing explanations for the crisis-driven political economy of debt and finance (shifting the dynamics of insinuation away from banking through institutionalization and insulation).