Its always a dead give away that someone is an unhappy camper with an axe to grind when he says something along these lines:

  • "ECB policies will always be ineffective"

"Always", eh? So, there are no circumstances in which a policy could be effective then, is that right? None? Ever?

LOL

Bloomberg reporting on some critics of the ECB policy announcement, not of all of which are so extreme.

IFO President Hans-Werner Sinn (reported in German press, Bild):

  • ECB lending at a negative interest rate of up to 0.4% to banks amounts to a prohibited subsidy policy in support of zombie banks and countries at risk of bankruptcy
  • Euro-region countries, which are net debtors, unscrupulously used their majority in the EU Council to craft interest rate conditions in a way so that they passed

Lars Feld of the Walter Eucken Institute:

  • ECB policies will always be ineffective
  • Countries like Italy haven't carried out reforms despite the interest rate lows, are spending more than they raise and new measures won't change anything

(See the problem? The second comment is reasonable, but saying something extreme and nonsensical to start with means a lot of us have switched off already.)

ZEW President Clemens Fuest:

  • Warns of risk of real-estate and bond mkt bubbles and weakening banks