Dated Monday, der Spiegel ran a speculative piece, asserting that the ECB was planning to use a new instrument to stop interest rates on Spannish sovereign bonds rising to dangerous levels.

The bank was "considering" setting yield targets on the bonds of eurozone countries and, when interest rates exceed those levels, the ECB would intervene by buying up their debt.



Read here...

http://www.eureferendum....ogview.aspx?blogno=83069

There never should have been a Finland story. It happened because a Telegraph journalist read too much from Finnish Foreign Minister Tuomioja's private speculations. Tuomioja is no stranger to controversy and has a tendency to express private opinions that are later taken as official position of the Finnish government. The only difference between this and other controversies born out of Tuomioja's staments is the fact that Israel was not involved this time.

Social Democrats (the other major coalition partner together with National Coalition Party) try to fool the voters by taking a fake eurosceptic line. Their ministers always mention the word "collateral" when talking about the bailout packages. However, the full details of the collateral agreements have never been made public, so the logical assumption is that the "collateral" is just smoke and mirrors and intended to hide the fact that Social Democrats fully support the bailouts and rescue of the single currency.

If you want to read between the lines though, you could do that by reading what Minister of European affairs Alexander Stubb (the leading tranzi in the Finnish cabinet) said. He was a little too eager to emphasize the commitment of the Finnish government on the rescue of euro. This leads to believe that there is some truth in Telegraph story, though nobody will publically confirm it.

Finland will not initiate the collapse of euro but will jump ship as soon as it looks inevitable i.e. when Germany does it.

The True Finns leader Timo Soini recently proposed two currency unions, the north and the south. However, this kind of union would hurt Finland more than euro. If Soini sounded more like a serious politician than someone too fond of his own punchlines, he would be the Prime Minister now. He has never spoken clearly what the breakup of euro would mean and how much it would hurt. Clearly, the return to Markka without any kind of pegging would be the only solution available after the collapse, but Soini has never said anything to indicate that he is in favour of such development. Soini is a threat to the current coalition but they can live with him as soon as he is content with inventing new soundbites for the media instead of telling what the way out would look like.

This definitely was not Ambrose's finest hour. And the situation was made inestimably worse when Reuters falsely attributed Timo Soini's quotes to Tuomioja. This would be like attributing Farage's more lurid statements to William Hague.

I contacted Reuters, telling them of their errors and they later pulled the story. They did not, however, issue a correction, and many of the papers which used the incorrect quotes (including Handelsblatt) are still carrying their own incorrect stories. This, in my view, has given the story even more undeserved exposure, adding to the general caution that one should never accept uncritically anything written in the newspapers.

And now the Sun has done it ...

http://www.eureferendum....ogview.aspx?blogno=83071

That just goes to show how they all piss in the same pot.

This from reuters reports that the German banks in fact want an stronger ECB to remove the "interference of politicians" in banking supervision.

http://uk.reuters.com/ar...on-idUKBRE87K0MX20120821



I bet they do too.Left to their own devises central bankers (who tend to be pro banking) will allow all sorts of favours for their private banking mates.

Thing is politicians are not interfering enough,and in the EZ they are not intefering at all,the ECB has carte blanche to operate policy that no democratically elected politician can really check.The ECB has not been given permission to print yet but has more or less been doing this off its own bat with the LTRO...and not one politician has dared question it so far.

Edited by user 21 August 2012 16:30:48(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified