Former Bank of England policy maker Willem Buiter said the European Central Bank will revive its bond-buying program to safeguard this week’s auction of Italian bonds.If only the Italians were allowed to increase their debt ceiling without conditions! Then they could go on spending and spending and spending!
“The ECB will intervene on whatever scale is necessary to allow Italy to conduct its auction on Thursday,” Buiter, now chief economist at Citigroup Inc., told reporters in London today. “If the ECB doesn’t come in, the Italian bond auction is likely to fail.”
Err, that is the problem, isn't it? It's not something else, right?
2 comments:
Something that occurs to me, is that when one government or government agency talks about what another government should do, we should watch out for who they think it would be good for.
I think the ECB is doing what they think is best for the ECB, not necessarily what is best for Italy.
Similarly, from your "Advice from Europe" posting yesterday, the fact that the Germans don't like the idea of the US cutting spending kind of makes me feel that they don't have our best interests at heart. And the idea of doing the opposite of what they want makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Good points, Tim. It looks to me like everyone is grasping for life preservers right now.
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