Karellen has stepped out of the European Central Bank, the mother ship and, despite the webbed wings, cloven hooves, tail and horns, his analysis of, and actions in, the eurozone have been accepted. (Italian spread is now below 380.)
Article 18 of the founding treaty of the European Central Bank permits the purchase of the bonds of sovereign states; such purchases will be unlimited, at the discretion of the ECB; the ECB will require the application of fiscal constraint in states seeking bond purchases; and any back-sliding on state undertakings will lead to no more bond purchases. What happens then was not spelled-out but, as Karellen remarked:
Even before the Overlords came to Earth, the sovereign state was dying.
They have merely hastened its end: no one can save it now--and no one
should try.
In order to restore confidence, policymakers in the euro area need to
push ahead with great determination with fiscal consolidation,
structural reforms to enhance competitiveness and European institution
building.
Earthly, global institutions such as the IMF are more than welcome to join the ECB in its guidance of sovereign, member-states of the eurozone.
In the meanwhile growth will be slow to non-existent, inflation rising but contained. It is up to the earthly [ie member-states, ed.] powers to adjust their economies, and economic and financial institutions to avoid the need for, or meet the requirements for, a bailout.
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3 comments:
These people are either living in Fairyland or working to a period of a few hundred years for all this eurodebt to be repaid. Still, the can gets kicked a bit further down the road.
In today's post I received from my UK bank the 'annual summary of charges, refunds and interest' - a document I have never previously received, so it must be something new. The charges and and refunds columns show a zero, which is comforting, but the 'average credit balance' column shows a useful 5-figure sum with the notation "This is the average amount which we would apply credit interest to......if applicable" [which of course, it isn't].
Thank goodness we didn't join the Euro. What would I have done with all that interest I have been robbed of over the past 12 months??
Today's announcement by the ECB is worrying. Yes they are the custodian of the Euro- in the absence of a State to own it. But buying debt of poor quality with the otherwise criminal objective of creating a false market in securities takes us to a new level of dishonour. We now have the politicians putting their goals ahead of their obligations to taxpayers on the one hand and the independent central bank creating a false market on the other. Next must come capital controls and exchange controls for someone must be compelled to support the illusion that default on a grand scale can be avoided. In any event pushing down yields needed to support growing liabilities (in the private sector particularly) cannot be seen as growth enhancing; nor can sterilising the newly acquired toxic waste be achieved without reducing bank lending. Our European Masters have kicked the can yet further down the street. The only way the debt problem is now going to be solved is massive inflation and an entire generation simply wiped out. Europeans are going to pay a great price for not very much in return.
The UK doesn't use the euro currency but it's bound by quite a lot of the regulation and institutional requirements of the EU's currency, isn't it Nomad?
The ECB has just revealed that it too can behave like the Bank of England behaves, or the behaviour in the US, and it's going to should it choose.
The whole lot of them are now at 'a new level of dishonour' as M d'A notes. Worse, there is some argument now that the ECB has 'come out' that there is a convergence between the UK and the eurozone.
I still want to know what Ken Clarke is doing as an economic minister without portfolio, a free-ranging, infinitely experienced minister loose inside government.
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