Courtesy of Mish.
As time passes, the rifts between the Bundesbank and the ECB grow wider. So do the rifts between what German citizens want and what German chancellor Angela Merkel is willing to do to “save the euro”.
Merkel increasingly (and as expected) does what she need to do to preserve he legacy, consequences (and Germany) be damned.
Please consider Merkel tries to calm storms over Greece, ECB policy
Angela Merkel tried to calm a growing storm over euro zone crisis strategy on Sunday after the Bundesbank likened ECB bond-buying plans to a dangerous drug and a conservative ally of the German leader said Greece should leave the currency bloc by next year.
The comments, from central bank chief Jens Weidmann and a senior figure in the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), Alexander Dobrindt, point to mounting unease in Germany with the policies being used to combat the three-year old debt crisis.
“We are in a very decisive phase in combating the euro debt crisis,” Merkel told public broadcaster ARD in an interview. “My plea is that everyone weigh their words very carefully.”
Dobrindt, whose party is preparing for a regional election in Bavaria and the federal vote next autumn, told top-selling German daily Bild he expected Greece to leave the euro zone in 2013. His comments drew a swift rebuke from Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle who said “bullying” of euro members must stop.
But Weidmann, a former economic adviser to Merkel, said in a front-page interview in influential German magazine Der Spiegel that the bond buys could violate rules against the ECB providing outright financing to governments.
“Such a policy is for me close to state financing via the printing press,” Weidmann told Spiegel. “In democracies, it is parliaments and not central banks that should decide on such a comprehensive pooling of risks. We should not underestimate the risk that central bank financing can become addictive like a drug,” Weidmann said.
Dobrindt was more direct, saying Draghi risked passing into the history books as the “currency forger of Europe”.
Merkel’s Disingenuous Pledge of “Help”
I really do not know why Merkel is so revered, although feared I can certainly understand. She is a skilled politician, very adept at saying one thing and doing another, yet not getting challenged on it.
…
