Perhaps the only major result of ECB intervention in the past few years has been the boosting of asset prices, as the market is awash with cheap money.

Bingo.  Cheap financing does not mean affordable assets.  Quite the contrary.  Prices are bid up to the return margin of those can get the cheap financing.  Everyone else is priced out of the market for everything of any consequence, and the Serious People are amazed to see no positive results from their cash dumping.  Instead, those who could get the financing end up hoarding the assets at speculative prices (See "Onset of Implosion of Every Financial Bubble Ever".), and everyone else is living hand to mouth, except for a fortunate few who hoard a few bucks/euros/yen because they can't actually spend it on anything.  In spite of what the Austro-Chicago tools preach, that is a liquidity trap and a deflation spiral, and giving more cheap money to the Ueberklass won't correct it (but then the Ueberklass doesn't thing anything needs correcting).

Any action is better than none, but the recent ECB action is years late.

In theory the increase in asset prices should then stimulate the building industry and other development processes which create those assets. But in Ireland, at any rate, the banks have been reluctant to pass on those low ECB rates to their customers as they seek to re-build their balance sheets post crash. Low interest rates are also bad for bank profitability, and as Krugman has observed, Central bankers talk a lot to commercial and retail bankers and are thus heavily influenced by their "needs" for high salaries and profitability.

Restrictions on mortgage availability (requiring a first time buyer to provide 20% of the capital) have meant that the main buyers of property have been cash rich wealthy private buyers and international hedge funds who see a killing to be made as the economy recovers.  However those same high asset prices for land and buildings also make it very difficult to justify new productive investments and thus the real economy is slowed down if not stalled altogether.

The German led export growth model of economic growth cannot work for everyone as not everyone can be a net exporter especially now that the "emerging" economies are suffering from a crash in commodity prices.  The only rational alternative is for Governments to increase domestic demand through fiscal expansion, and that is precisely what they will not do - witness Osborne's latest announcement of cuts in UK government expenditure.

So the bottom line is that the ECB can't do very much, and much of what they can do has counter-productive consequences.  However the only reason we are even having this conversation is that the ECB appears to be the only EU institution which is even trying to take some responsibility for ensuring economic recovery.  The Commission is doing nothing of note, while national governments are persuing beggar thy neighbour policies.

So the economic crisis is also a political crisis of EU political authority, democratic legitamacy, and institutional capabilities - all of which the UK government and some semi-facistic allies in eastern Europe are trying to undermine further with its Brexit debate.  It is an open question whether Brexit would not be in the interests of a better functioning EU in the longer term even if it has severe consequences for the UK's main trading partners like Ireland in the short term. Without a functioning EU demos, EU institutions cannot develop in response to the crisis as the UK leads the way on nationalistic disintegration.

Index of Frank's Diaries

the ECB's bond buying program will have no impact on employment, business investment, inflation, lending or growth. It will, however, create a temporary incentive for corporations to buy back more of their own shares while providing more cheap cash for banks to roll over their prodigious pile of debt which otherwise would have dragged them into default. All in all, Draghi's turbo-charged QE should do largely what it was designed to do, shift more cash into overpriced financial assets while perpetuating the illusion that the EU banking system is still solvent.

The size and scale of Draghi's massive giveaway is impressive by any standard. He increased his purchases of financial assets by a hefty €20 billion per month (from €60 billion to €80 billion), pushed interest rates lower into negative territory (by 10 basis points), improved financing for the banks, and announced his intention to buy investment grade corporate bonds. The announcement that the ECB planned to enter the bond market was warmly received on Wall Street where giddy traders bought up everything that wasn't nailed to the ground. The Dow logged another triple-digit day while the S&P and Nasdaq followed close behind.

Can I ask you about what's left in the toolbox? Could we see `helicopter drops'?

There has been a lot of skepticism recently about monetary policy, not only in delivering but in saying `your toolbox is empty'. We say, `no it's not true'. There are many things you can do. The question is what is appropriate, and at what time. I think for the time being we have what we have, and it is not appropriate to discuss the next set of measures.

But in principle the ECB could print cheques and send them to people?

Yes, all central banks can do it. You can issue currency and you distribute it to people. That's helicopter money. Helicopter money is giving to the people part of the net present value of your future seigniorage, the profit you make on the future banknotes. The question is, if and when is it opportune to make recourse to that sort of instrument which is really an extreme sort of instrument.