Tag Archives: Central Banks

“Incomprehensible” And “Meaningless”

May 12, 2020 By in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Are the previous court decisions ruling that the European Court of Justice can have primacy over national law in Germany. It’s also “incomprehensible” that it took so long for everybody to figure this out. I sure hope that this latest ruling won’t be ruled out as “meaningless” later but I’ve had my hopes dashed before.

Judge

Germany’s constitutional court sent shockwaves through Europe last week by ruling that the German government and the EU’s top judges failed to properly scrutinise the European Central Bank’s bond-buying programme.

The judgment threatens to turn the European Commission against Germany, the EU’s biggest member state. It raises doubts over the primacy of the European Court of Justice over national law. It also risks driving a wedge between the ECB and its biggest shareholder, the Bundesbank.

Germany’s highest court dismissed an earlier ECJ ruling in ECB’s favour as “incomprehensible” and “meaningless”. That bombshell decision opened the door to potential legal challenges against the EU from other countries, such as Poland and Hungary, whose authoritarian governments are already at odds with Brussels.

I Got Your Quantitative Easing For You Right Here, Pal

May 5, 2020 By in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Horror, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Imagine that. A nation state (member state) ought to have a say in how its money is spent. What a radical new concept.

Court

Germany’s top court has ruled that the European Central Bank’s mass bond-buying to stabilise the eurozone partly violates the German constitution.

The ruling relates to government debt worth €2.1 trillion (£2tn; $2.3tn) bought by the ECB since 2015, but not purchases in the coronavirus crisis.

The Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe says there is not enough German political oversight in the purchases…

The plaintiffs are a group of German academics, including a former leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), Bernd Lucke. They argue that the purchases violate the EU ban on one eurozone member subsidising the debts of another.

It is now up to the ECB to explain how its mass bond-buying programme is “proportionate”. The Bundesbank could pull out if it is not satisfied, in three months’ time – which would be a big blow to the eurozone.

German Of The Day: Strafzins

September 15, 2019 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means “punitive interest rate” and refers to a rates below zero.

Strafzins

It’s an accurate word invention. The ECB has cut rates again and those who save are punished.

The German term “Strafzins”, or “punishment rate” is widely used in the country’s media to refer to interest rates below zero. And a day after the ECB cut rates for the first time since the spring of 2016, it is back in the news.

This is despite the fact there is an alternative German word for negative rates: negativzins (as Michael Steen, formerly of the FT and ECB global media chief, pointed out on Twitter).

Admittedly negativ also has . . . negative connotations. But the use of “straf”, or “punitive”, reflects a widespread perception across Germany that the ECB is penalising savers through its monetary policy.

“They want to pump us up with the credit drug.”

German Of The Day: Graf Draghila

September 13, 2019 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means Count Draghila.

Draghila

You know, as in Mario Draghi, the European Central Bank President?

Mass-selling German newspaper Bild on Friday accused European Central Bank President Mario Draghi of “sucking dry” the bank accounts of Germany’s savers, a day after the ECB cut interest rates deeper into negative territory.

Next to a photomontage of Draghi with fangs and dressed as a vampire, Bild’s headline read: “Count Draghila is sucking our accounts dry.”

Hoping to kick-start economic activity nearly a decade after the euro zone’s debt crisis, the ECB on Thursday cut interest rates deeper into negative territory and promised bond purchases with no end-date to push borrowing costs even lower.

“The horror for German savers goes on and on.”

Germans Suddenly Poor

March 22, 2013 By in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, High Art, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The Bundesbank (Germany’s central bank) has just published a study showing that the average German household is a full three times less wealthy than its crisis-hit Spanish or Italian counterparts.

Poor

Whereas the median Spanish household has net wealth of €178,000, the equivalent in Germany is €51,000.

“These German households are downright poor,” a spokesman for the Bundesbank said after presenting the study. “Relatively speaking, I mean. In fact they are so poor that they have to eat cereal with a fork just to save milk.”

“Poor? These households are so poor they only have two TV channels: On and off.”

“We’re talking poor here, folks. These households are so poor that the ducks throw bread at them.”

Germany’s relatively low level of home ownership is one of the principal reasons suggested for the wealth disparity.

Is Possession Really Nine-Tenths Of The Law?

October 24, 2012 By in Heconomy, Helplessness, History, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Strange. Stored abroad since the Cold War in case of a Soviet invasion, nearly half of Germany’s gold reserves are stored in the United States.

Stranger still: The Bundesbank or other independent auditors have never actually physically checked the gold’s authenticity or weight but have relied on “written confirmations by the storage sites” instead.

Now folks are starting to, you know, wonder (paranoia runs deep)? Hey, central banking at its best is all I can say. It’s not that we don’t trust you, it’s just that we don’t trust you.

“Ein Teil der Diskussion in Deutschland ist schon einigermaßen grotesk.”

The Symptoms Of The Times

August 26, 2012 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Withdrawal, I am told, can refer to any sort of separation, but is most commonly used to describe the group of symptoms that occurs upon the abrupt discontinuation/separation or a decrease in dosage of the intake of medications and recreational drugs.

In order to experience the symptoms of withdrawal, one must have first developed a physical/mental dependence (often referred to as chemical dependency).

„Notenbankfinanzierung kann süchtig machen.“

So Much For That Shootout

August 3, 2012 By in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I still don’t know who Gary Cooper was here, but Mario Draghi just went from “I will do whatever it takes to preserve the euro” (and buy up Spanish and Italian bonds) to “the ECB may consider” doing so at a later date.

Needless to say, the markets were not amused. Cherchez la femme, I’d say (and it ain’t Grace Kelly).

What’s the hold up? Germany, perhaps. During a press conference afterwards, ECB vice-president Vítor Constâncio noted that only one member of the ECB was adamantly opposed to bond purchases. This seems to be a reference to Germany’s Bundesbank, which had vigorously opposed a central-bank bailout of Spain and Italy. And even though the Bundesbank doesn’t have a direct veto over ECB actions, it seems Germany, as the richest country in the euro zone, still has plenty of sway.

“For all the criticism of Merkel, she distinguishes herself from politicians on both sides of the Atlantic in that she has a plan.”

Bond, Sovereign Bond

November 16, 2011 By in Heconomy, Helplessness, History, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

So, is it time for the sweet poison or the silver bullet? Germany (or one German) is the last man standing and it’s time to pay up or shut up.

Can Germany (and Germany’s “independent” Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann) jump over its/his shadow and allow the European Central Bank to become the lender of last resort in Europe’s never-ending efforts to prop up the euro?

Pump up the volume already. Half a dozen bailout packages and half a trillion euros later, Greece is closer to leaving the euro zone than ever before and Italy now seems bound for bankruptcy, too. Who’s next? And where’s the money? It looks like Europe’s arsenal is down to one last taboo here: Let the ECB vouch for all of the outstanding debt of the debtor nations, “permanently, to an unlimited extent and in violation of all applicable laws.” Germany, for some strange (and wonderful) reason, is still against doing this.

You know the deal, my fellow Americans. It’s the easy way out: “Print money and drown the debt crisis in a sea of liquidity.” Look what its done for us – so far.

Hey look, I don’t know much about economics (nor do at least half of the world’s economists, for that matter), but I do know that if President Barack Obama, President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso are all urging the Germans to abandon their resistance to the ECB plan, it’s probably best for the rest of us out there if this Weidmann guy sticks to his guns. I wouldn’t bet money on him doing so, though. And I certainly wouldn’t bet using the euro.

He mechanically recited the traditional mantras of the Bundesbank: “independence,” “a culture of stability” and “credibility.”