the ECB can hardly to anything about the fact that the Irish state has since independence but especially in the last years at 3, 4, 5% at the capital markets.

And that would be wrong.

As a central bank issuing a non-redeemable currency, the ECB can and should fix the price of any sovereign bond.

Sovereign bonds are interest rate policy instruments, not fiscal policy instruments - there is no excuse for allowing the international money markets to constrain fiscal policy, and there is no excuse for allowing the international money markets to set policy rates.

The ECB is derelict in its duties as a central bank because it isn't buying Irish bonds at above market value. The Irish need to put the thumbscrews on the ECB. Which means putting the thumbscrews on Mrs Merkel. Which means making German banks insolvent, since that is apparently the only thing Mrs Merkel gives a shit about. She certainly doesn't give a pot of piss for European solidarity or the plight of Irish widows and orphans.

And if taking the German banking system hostage to get Mrs Merkel to stop screaming bloody murder whenever somebody tries to get the ECB to do its fucking job results in some collateral damage to German savers... well, you can go take it up with your own neoliberal CDU/FDP government that precipitated the crisis in the first place by insisting that the ECB can't do its job.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.