What's Happening with the Eurozone?

A few of you have emailed and asked.  I understand the latest as follows: Draghi basically understands the problem, but is hemmed in by Germany.  He is now to some extent freelancing and daring Germany to pull him back in.  He’ll print money to target short-term yields for the debt of the periphery, which he feels Germany might eventually accept, for lack of better alternatives and because it also keeps up the pressure for policy reforms.  He’s rather audaciously trying to redefine what the ECB’s mandate should be taken to mean by defining a lot of “extracurricular” activity as keeping the system up and running.  He’ll push for the banking license for ESM (which would allow them to significantly expand what they do and in essence bypass some of the charter restrictions on the ECB itself), which he probably feels Germany won’t accept but what the heck he’s gotten this far so why not keep on trying?  It’s easy enough to criticize him for not having made any kind of full commitment, but he’s already played more of a dare game than most observers thought possible.  I say he is doing a high-quality tightrope act which probably will fail but which increases the chance of the whole thing pulling through.

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