Tag: ek Politics

An Impeccable Disaster

By PAUL KRUGMAN, The New York Times

Published: September 11, 2011

On Thursday Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank or E.C.B. – Europe’s equivalent to Ben Bernanke – lost his sang-froid. In response to a question about whether the E.C.B. is becoming a “bad bank” thanks to its purchases of troubled nations’ debt, Mr. Trichet, his voice rising, insisted that his institution has performed “impeccably, impeccably!” as a guardian of price stability.

…

(T)he problem is the E.C.B.’s obsession with maintaining its “impeccable” record on price stability: at a time when Europe desperately needs a strong recovery, and modest inflation would actually be helpful, the bank has instead been tightening money, trying to head off inflation risks that exist only in its imagination.

And now it’s all coming to a head. We’re not talking about a crisis that will unfold over a year or two; this thing could come apart in a matter of days. And if it does, the whole world will suffer.

So will the E.C.B. do what needs to be done – lend freely and cut rates? Or will European leaders remain too focused on punishing debtors to save themselves? The whole world is watching.

Understanding Trichet and Conpany: A Note

Brad Delong

September 12, 2011

What are Jean-Claude Trichet and company really thinking right now?

The most likely scenario is this: they bet on mean-reversion in unemployment, on the magic full-employment equilibrium-restoring properties of the market, on their role as prudent stewards of financial rectitude, and on a take-no-prisoners commitment to price stability in all circumstances as the driving force behind the great moderation.

They were wrong.

They now have a choice.

They can admit that they were wrong. Then they will probably have to resign, and then be snubbed worldwide. Nobody likes a loser.

Alternatively, they can double down. Their reputations right now are underwater. What do they have to lose reputationwise by saying more absurd nonsense? And there is a chance that tomorrow the confidence fairy will appear, wave her magic wand, and the V-shaped recovery will start.

That is my guess as to how to understand what Trichet and Company are now saying: they are reputationally-bankrupt zombies gambling for resurrection.

Accessory After The Fact (Blackstone)-

(W)here a person, knowing a felony to have been committed, receives, relieves, comforts, or assists the felon. Therefore, to make an accessory ex post facto, it is in the first place requisite that he knows of the felony committed.

In the next place, he must receive, relieve, comfort, or assist him. And, generally, any assistance whatever given to a felon, to hinder his being apprehended, tried, or suffering punishment, makes the assistor an accessory. As furnishing him with a horse to escape his pursuers, money or victuals to support him, a house or other shelter to conceal him, or open force and violence to rescue or protect him.

WikiLeaks Cable: Iraqi Interrogators Rape Juveniles to Get Confessions

By: Kevin Gosztola, Firedog Lake

Monday September 12, 2011 10:52 am

A US State Embassy cable marked “confidential” and published by WikiLeaks reveals details on the detention of juveniles held in “Site 4” in a Iraqi Interior Ministry (MOI) detention complex. The juveniles allege sexual abuse by Iraqi interrogators, specifically that rapes were being used in the prison to induce confessions. The discovery of widespread abuse and torture, according to the diplomat who wrote the cable, is the worst since the infamous Jadriyah “Bunker” facility was discovered in 2005.

…

Impunity is typical. If one recalls how the US military coexisted with the Interior Ministry’s Wolf Brigade, a death squad known to have tortured Iraqis, especially Sunnis, the failure of multinational forces to do anything about those likely involved in torture isn’t surprising. A military order, Frago 242, uncovered in the Iraq War Logs published by WikiLeaks shows the military operated under an order not to fully investigate torture or abuse at the hands of Iraqi interrogators. In fact, the military would threaten detainees with the possibility that they might be transferred and subjected to torture by the Wolf Brigade if they didn’t cooperate or confess during interrogations. It is likely the US military has played off Iraqi fears by promising Iraqis they would be detained in US detention facilities instead of Iraqi detention facilities if they did what was asked of them.

…

The brutality of Iraqi police, which the US and coalition forces are in charge of training, has been clearly documented and the State Department and US military is fully aware of the appalling abuse and torture that is systemic in Iraqi detention facilities. Nothing happens.

The shock is ironic. The US operates Guantanamo, Bagram and various secret prison facilities where detainees are rendered to for interrogations that often involve abuse and torture. The US transformed the Abu Ghraib prison operated by Saddam Hussein into a facility that would become a symbol of US torture and abuse of detainees.

The US has rendered detainees to countries known to commit torture, such as Egypt, or transferred detainees into the custody of forces such as the Iraqi or Afghan police that are known to commit brutality and violence against detainees. The US has had other governments run secret prisons where US agents can come in and interrogate people but not have to take responsibility for the horrors going on in the facility (e.g. Somalia).

With that in mind, it is not shocking that prisons are able to operate where interrogators subject teenagers to anal rape to induce confessions or force juveniles to give them fellatio. The Interior Ministry will not punish the swine who commit such atrocities, therefore, the world can expect to read more accounts of horrific abuse of this nature.

Good Germans.

Hmm…

According to Zap2it, of the 5 major broadcast networks, only ABC is going to carry the Presidential Address on Jobs in front of a Joint Session of Congress.  Even MSNBC is saying that they’re going with a Tweety repeat.  Don’t blink, you might miss it.

The rest?  Entertainment Tonight, Jeopardy, and Wheel of Fortune.  In short, Local Programming.

I’ll allow you to ponder for a moment what that says about prospects for Electoral Victory in 2012.

NBC is going to be showing Football Night in America without Keith Olbermann and if you don’t care to watch that and are as television addicted as I, here is some other programming to accompany your Season Opening Kickoff party.

It’s the Hypnotoad-

• AMC- Goodfellas, Batman Begins
• Comedy- TDS/TCR
• Disney- Phineas and Ferb, Good Luck Charlie
• ESPN2- U.S. Open Tennis (maybe)
• Food- Chopped
• History- UFOs (they must be real, they’re on History Channel!)
• Lifetime- Project Runway
• Nick- Spongebob Squarepants
• SciFi- NFL Kickoff 2011 (now what this has to do with Science Fiction…, USA & Vs. too)
• TBS- Seinfeld
• Toon- MAD, Adventure Time, Regular Show
• Travel- Man v. Food (thank goodness)

It should be a fun game, Saints v. Packers– a repeat of last year’s Super Bowl.  If you want, you can discuss that below too.

Well, Obama thought it was important enough to delay his Joint Session of Congress ‘Jobs’ speech for so I expect earth shattering developments of enormous consequence.

Or not.

I’ll not be live blogging it, or probably even watching as I’ll get a chance at the repeats, but if you have any observations of significance (or trivial expressions of snark) feel free to express them below.

Update: In a late breaking development Texas Governor Rick Perry is abandoning his state to be consumed by wild fires (after cutting the budget for fire fighting 70%) to attend this American Idol audition.

So unpredictable, and by that I mean totally…

Dictable I guess.

A Campaign Challenge: Defining Obama

By JEFF ZELENY, The New York Times

Published: September 6, 2011

Mr. Obama stands at a precarious moment of his term. Public pessimism is at its highest point in nearly three years, and his approval rating has fallen to its lowest, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News Poll, which also found that more than 60 percent of those surveyed disapprove of how he is handling the economy and jobs.

The White House can no longer take comfort in comparing the approval ratings for Mr. Obama with Ronald Reagan’s or Bill Clinton’s in the months after their stinging midterm election defeats. By the time their re-election efforts were intensifying after Labor Day, their respective repositioning had helped elevate their approval above 50 percent.

…

“If this is just a referendum on economic conditions, then any incumbent is going to struggle with that, but it’s not just that. It’s a contest about what to do about it,” said David Axelrod, the chief strategist to the president’s re-election campaign. “I’d be more worried if I saw some compelling new argument for how to lead the country, but these guys are carrying the same old water.”

Speaking of carrying the same old water-

The president intends to offer at least some progressive proposals to help regain a fighting posture that he has not had since the health care debate, but a provision is also being discussed to place a new moratorium on some regulations that affect the economy, excluding health care and financial rules. The proposals are likely to infuriate an already unhappy Democratic base.

So he is going to be Endorsing The Rick Perry Jobs Program.

What else?  The same old, same old tax cuts that are 1) not new and will therefore not improve the economy OR create jobs and 2) are tax cuts which have been consistently proven over the last thirty years do not improve the economy OR create jobs.

Obama Jobs Plan: $300 Billion, Half to Tax Cuts

By: David Dayen, Firedog Lake

Wednesday September 7, 2011 6:10 am

We can divvy it up into five separate components:

1. tax-side stimulus. There you have the extension of the payroll tax cut, with a new employer-side cut, perhaps targeted only to firms that hire more workers on aggregate, as has been discussed.
2. infrastructure. Included in this is some amalgam of the surface transportation bill and the national infrastructure bank, along with Jared Bernstein’s FAST proposal for fixing and upgrading American public schools.
3. direct state aid. This is slightly new for this round, but still desperately needed. Jobs statistics for the past two years routinely show cuts in the public sector offsetting whatever gains exist in the private sector. Teachers and firefighters and cops and nurses are being laid off across the country. Stopping this corrosion is one of the best things the federal government can do right now.
4. help for the unemployed. Re-upping extended unemployment insurance benefits would be part of this, but also you can expect a program for long-term unemployed modeled after Georgia WORKS, which allows long-term jobless to collect benefits (as well as a small stipend) and essentially intern at local companies for a short-term assignment. This is controversial, as the benefits of Georgia WORKS are mixed at best, and labor leaders have questioned whether it violates federal laws to allow free labor for corporations. If you pushed this envelope further and made it a wage-subsidy policy, you might have something, but this appears tailored to catch the eye of Republicans.
5. mortgage relief. It’s possible some kind of mass-refinancing scheme gets announced, although there are hurdles, mainly FHFA Acting Director Ed DeMarco, who is reluctant to refi many borrowers who wouldn’t normally qualify as well as negate any representations and warrants liability on the part of the banks. There’s also the fact that banks don’t appear to be able to keep up with the refinancing applications at present, and there should be no faith that they would be able to support a surge in such work.

Let’s briefly look at the numbers. A $300 billion scheme would amount to around 2% of total GDP, and that’s being charitable by saying that this would all be used up in one year. That would have an impact, but half of this would be supply-side solutions that haven’t inspired much confidence during the recession. The question of whether temporary tax cuts are spent is a good one to ask. Especially on the employer side; if minimum wage increases have no effect on jobs, then surely tax subsidies to make hiring cheaper wouldn’t either.

What’s more, $112 billion of this $300 billion would come just from that extension of the payroll tax cut, which is already in place. That’s not stimulative, it’s just an extension of current law. So would be the $55 billion or so for unemployment benefits. Letting them expire might be undesirable, but just keeping them in place would just maintain the status quo, which last month created something on the order of zero jobs. The rest of the items amount to $130-$140 billion, not nearly enough to fill the demand gap hole. Actual direct public works spending is scant, and the supply-side faerie dust irrelevant to the actual problem.

…

If this is a policy document, it’s both inadequate and dangerous. If it’s a political one, it stays within well-drawn lines, rather than screaming what even the bond markets say the world needs – a complete reordering of fiscal policy to deal with a raging crisis. Yet we still have a Democratic Administration playing mostly on Republican turf.

(h/t lambert @ Corrente)

Obama and Jobs: Why I Don’t Believe Him Anymore

Matt Taibbi, Roling Stone Magazine

POSTED: September 6, 9:17 AM ET

I remember following Obama on the campaign trail and hearing all sorts of promises before union-heavy crowds. He said he would raise the minimum wage every year; he said he would fight free-trade agreements. He also talked about repealing the Bush tax cuts and ending tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas.

It’s not just that he hasn’t done those things. The more important thing is that the people he’s surrounded himself with are not labor people, but stooges from Wall Street. Barack Obama has as his chief of staff a former top-ranking executive from one of the most grossly corrupt mega-companies on earth, JP Morgan Chase. He sees Bill Daley in his own office every day, yet when it comes time to talk abut labor issues, he has to go out and make selected visits twice a year or whatever to the Richard Trumkas of the world.

Listening to Obama talk about jobs and shared prosperity yesterday reminded me that we are back in campaign mode and Barack Obama has started doing again what he does best – play the part of a progressive. He’s good at it. It sounds like he has a natural affinity for union workers and ordinary people when he makes these speeches. But his policies are crafted by representatives of corporate/financial America, who happen to entirely make up his inner circle.

I just don’t believe this guy anymore, and it’s become almost painful to listen to him.

In a cloud over ozone

By Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post

Published: September 2

Republicans are trying to sell the false premise that protecting the environment inevitably means sacrificing jobs. President Obama should denounce this snake oil for what it is – rather than appear to accept it.

…

On Friday, Obama appeared to cede the point. He blocked new EPA rules limiting ground-level ozone – otherwise known as smog – as part of a larger effort to reduce “regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty” for U.S. businesses. The move came hours after a disappointing labor report showing that the economy added no new jobs in August.

…

As for the predictions of massive job losses, they sound just like the warnings we heard when environmental regulations ended acid rain or ensured that the citizens of Cleveland no longer had to worry about the Cuyahoga River catching fire.

There is plenty of evidence that the net effect of smart environmental regulation is to create jobs, not destroy them. New, more efficient plants are built; older, dirtier facilities are retrofitted. Companies innovate by developing new technology – ultimately making U.S. industry more competitive. And everyone is a little healthier.

Broken Windows, Ozone, and Jobs

Paul Krugman, The New York Times

September 3, 2011, 10:07 am

I’ve actually been avoiding thinking about the latest Obama cave-in, on ozone regulation; these repeated retreats are getting painful to watch. For what it’s worth, I think it’s bad politics. The Obama political people seem to think that their route to victory is to avoid doing anything that the GOP might attack – but the GOP will call Obama a socialist job-killer no matter what they do. Meanwhile, they just keep reinforcing the perception of mush from the wimp, of a president who doesn’t stand for anything.

…

(T)ighter ozone regulation would actually have created jobs: it would have forced firms to spend on upgrading or replacing equipment, helping to boost demand. Yes, it would have cost money – but that’s the point! And with corporations sitting on lots of idle cash, the money spent would not, to any significant extent, come at the expense of other investment.

More broadly, if you’re going to do environmental investments – things that are worth doing even in flush times – it’s hard to think of a better time to do them than when the resources needed to make those investments would otherwise have been idle.

Zero Job Growth Latest Bleak Sign for U.S. Economy

By SHAILA DEWAN, The New York Times

Published: September 2, 2011

August brought no increase in the number of jobs in the United States, a signal that the economy has stalled and that inaction by policy makers carries substantial risk.

…

Mr. Obama, who instructed the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday to pull back on more stringent standards on ozone emissions in response to complaints that they would hurt hiring, is expected to propose tax incentives to promote hiring and infrastructure spending. He also is expected to renew the payroll tax cut and extend unemployment benefits, both of which are set to expire.

…

Much of the movement that did appear in the jobs report went in the wrong direction. Revised numbers showed that job growth in June and July was smaller than previously indicated. In August, wages fell and the average number of hours worked inched down – a sign that businesses had less for employees to do.

Governments continued to cut jobs, the Labor Department reported. Small gains at the state level were attributed in part to the return of workers from the government shutdown in Minnesota. Local governments lost 20,000 jobs as they continued to struggle with budget shortfalls and the disappearance of federal stimulus money.

Black unemployment: Highest in 27 years

By Annalyn Censky @CNNMoney

September 2, 2011: 3:13 PM ET

Black unemployment surged to 16.7% in August, its highest level since 1984, while the unemployment rate for whites fell slightly to 8%, the Labor Department reported.

…

Overall, black men have it the worst, with joblessness at a staggeringly high 19.1%, compared to 14.5% for black women.

Black unemployment has now remained above 10% for four straight years, and the given current economic sluggishness, some experts say it’s safe to predict the rate will remain above 10% for four more years.

White House Expects Persistently High Unemployment

By JACKIE CALMES, The New York Times

Published: September 1, 2011

The White House budget office forecast on Thursday that unemployment would remain at 9 percent through the 2012 presidential election year, an outlook that it said calls for the sort of the job-creating tax cuts and spending President Obama will propose next week.

The unemployment outlook for the next 16 months reflects a 9.1 percent rate this year, down slightly from the 9.3 percent forecast when President Obama made his annual budget request in February. Next year, the projected jobless rate is 9 percent, up from 8.6 percent in the February forecast.

Unemployment will not return to the 5 percent range until 2017, the budget office said, reflecting the intensity of the hangover from the most severe recession since the Great Depression.

While the budget office’s unemployment forecast for 2012 is no surprise given similar private sector projections, it amounts to the White House’s official acknowledgement of the political hurdle in Mr. Obama’s path to re-election.

Labor unions adjust to new reality under Obama

By SAM HANANEL, Associated Press

3 hours ago

It’s a far cry from the early optimism unions had after Obama came into office. Back then, unions hoped a Democratic-controlled Congress would pass legislation to make it easier for unions to organize workers. But business groups fought that proposal hard, and it never came to a vote.

Union leaders grew more disappointed when the president’s health care overhaul didn’t include a government-run insurance option. Then Obama agreed to extend President George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy.

Obama came out in favor of trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama that most unions say will cost American jobs. Despite campaigning in favor of raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9.50 an hour, Obama hasn’t touched the issue since taking office.

…

(L)abor’s frustration with Obama reached new heights this summer as Trumka accused him of working with tea party Republicans on deficit reduction instead of “stepping up to the plate” on jobs.

Labor unions and other liberal groups want Obama to push a major stimulus bill with hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending on infrastructure projects like roads, bridges and transit systems. Even if it’s rejected in the GOP-controlled House, unions want to see Obama show more leadership and take a bold stand in favor of stimulus spending.

That’s not likely to happen.

…

(U)nions have begun shifting money and resources out of Democratic congressional campaigns and back to the states in a furious effort to reverse or limit GOP measures that could wipe out union rolls.

The AFL-CIO’s president, Richard Trumka, says it’s part of a new strategy for labor to build an independent voice separate from the Democratic Party.

Union donations to federal candidates at the beginning of this year were down about 40 percent compared with the same period in 2009, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Last month, a dozen trade unions said they would boycott next year’s Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., over frustration on the economy and to protest the event’s location in a right-to-work state.

Good luck with that Labor vote Barack.  Thanks for nothing.

So I’m almost done with my ringleader gig at TDS/TCR.  I like those diaries (call me old school) because they are fast paced and interactive which is something I’ve never been able to duplicate in this platform, partly because I have so much work creating content and scheduling that I’m not often able to stick around.

In any event, Kyle the Mainer was unaware of the plight of the International Space Station and since the repeat Thursday included Stephen’s interview with the crew of STS-135 I made that the focus.

The plan was that going forward there would be a semi-permanent crew of 6 at the International Space Station supported by regular visits of Russian Progress unmanned supply capsules and the crew rotated 3 at a time by manned Soyuz capsules with 2 extra attached to the Station as ‘life boats’.

On August 24th, about 6 days after this interview was taped, a Russian Soyuz launch vehicle (as opposed to capsule) with a Progress supply payload crashed shortly after launch.

No big dead said people at the time, we’ll just stretch out supplies and launch another one soon.  They even made jokes about one of the Russians having to borrow flight suits from an American.

It turns out that it was much more serious.  You see, it was the second such failure in a row and the Soyuz launch program was suspended indefinitely a day later.

Not only that, the delay of the planned September crew rotation mission is a real problem which, as reported Monday the 29th could result in the complete evacuation of the ISS by November.

The problem you see is that the Hydrogen Peroxide component of the maneuvering thruster fuel on a Soyuz capsule degrades over time.  Quite quickly in fact, it only has a safe life of 210 days.  Both the ‘life boat’ re-entry vehicles are near their limit and must be replaced by units traveling with crew replacements.

So there is talk of evacuation and leaving the Station unmanned for the first time in over 10 years.  There are 2 problems with this- The first is component failure.  While the Station can be controlled from the ground, if there is a problem requiring maintenance the chances of having the entire platform de-orbit and burn up in the atmosphere start at 10% in the first 6 months and rise to 50% after a year.

The second problem is that there are already people questioning the utility of the ISS and the need for a crew at all.

So this is why the Space Station is screwed.

Addendum:

I may be unduly pessimistic, it’s entirely possible that the launch failures are due to procedural errors as the Russians insist and that they will be corrected in time for the next scheduled launch in late September.  On the other hand it’s not at all encouraging that one of the most prominent voices in favor of shutting down the ISS is the Director of the entire Russian program.

thereisnospoon says never ascribe to malice what can be explained by ignorance and pride.  Me, I’m not so charitable.

But Markos’ key critique of the Administration is well-taken. First, everything they do is almost designed to make them look craven and weak. Being accommodating is one thing; being constantly humiliated like Charlie Brown kicking a football is quite another.

And it’s not even working to attract independents. It’s terrible politics, in addition to being terrible policy.

Keep in mind that these are some of the top political professionals in the entire United States advising the Administration on these maneuvers. Which means that either they’re utterly incompetent idiots as Digby and I have repeatedly argued, or they’re paid-off corrupted tools of a grand global elitist conspiracy. Personally, I find the latter idea preposterous hogwash, a comforting opium for the sorts of people who want to believe that there are no solutions, or that the solutions are as as easy as grabbing pitchforks and guillotines and letting blood run in the streets. Yes, there’s rampant criminality–in Wall Street’s case, even an entire culture of criminality. And those criminals should be held to account. But that doesn’t mean that the entire governmental and financial apparatus–or even most of it–is run either by elite criminals or their paid-off lackeys. It just doesn’t work that way, as anyone who has actually dealt with the individual policy makers in question knows.

…

It’s just really hard–and frankly terrifying–for a lot of people to believe that we’re really governed by selfish, short-sighted, incompetent morons. That our lives are really and truly dominated by idiots who set their eyes on a shiny object like next quarter’s profit statements, or moving the polling dial with white female independents aged 35-65 by five points, or some other stupidity, so much that they miss the big picture, and then grab as much of the loot as possible and make the best of the situation after everything smashes to bits. That’s understandable. But if policy makers want to limit the growing number of conspiracy mavens out there, it might be advisable for them to try putting competent people in charge for a change. Otherwise, they’ll get the paranoid public attitudes toward them that they deserve.

More–

Seems like no matter which door you peek behind, a neoliberal is behind it with a wrong answer. And when they’re called on being wrong, there’s another neoliberal waiting behind the next door with another wrong answer. In fact, there’s an endless string of stupid and/or corrupt business school graduates waiting to tell us that the banking sector crisis is the fault of social security, labor unions, universal healthcare, strange swarthy Greeks, individual deadbeat homeowners, welfare queens driving Cadillacs, the Environmental Protection Agency, and anyone and anything else they care to dream up. Anyone, of course, but the banks, business school grads and Milton Friedman acolytes who drove this car straight in the ditch and refuse to take any responsibility for having been right behind the wheel the whole time.

Herr Doktor Professor–

Zero job growth, with unemployment still at nosebleed levels. Meanwhile, the interest rate on 10-year US bonds is down to 2.04%, and it’s negative on inflation-protected securities.

…

Too bad there weren’t any prominent economists warning that the obsession with short-term deficits was a terrible mistake, that austerity would undermine hopes of recovery. Oh, wait.

The awful thing is that those of us who warned about all this – based not on some unorthodox doctrine, but on basic textbook macroeconomics – weren’t so much argued down as just ignored. Somehow, those with actual power were convinced that fiscal austerity wasn’t just an option but the only option, and that anyone arguing with that – even people like me and Joe Stiglitz, who had a few easy-to-understand credentials – were just not part of the serious discussion.

Nobel Prizes?  They mean nothing.  Look at Obama’s.

Is austerity killing Europe’s recovery?

By Howard Schneider, The Washington Post

Published: September 1

(T)he budget cutting has been coupled with a reluctance by the the European Central Bank to stimulate economic growth like the Federal Reserve has in the United States; the ECB has instead raised interest rates twice this year to contain inflation.

Those steps have sucked hundreds of billions of dollars out of a European economy that may be edging towards recession.

Such a downturn, by choking off government revenues and increasing the demand for public services, could put struggling countries such as Spain and Italy at risk of missing the very deficit-reduction targets that budget cuts and other austerity measures were meant to achieve.

…

In Spain, for instance, where the parliament this week is voting to place constitutional limits on government deficits in a bid to reassure global investors, some analysts say the country is taking the wrong medicine. Spain’s debt level remains lower than even that of Germany, the continent’s strongest economy and one of the world’s benchmark credit risks. But Spain’s unemployment rate is more than double that of the United States, and some economists say the country needs a healthy dose of policies to restore growth, not constrain it.

…

Recent statistics showed that the combined economy of euro-zone countries nearly stalled from April through July, with growth of just 0.2 percent. Germany’s economy, one of the main props of the region, grew just 0.1 percent. Analysts project Spain’s annual growth at about 0.7 percent for the year, far below prior government estimates of 2.3 percent.

…

With the euro-zone economy slowing and governments aggressively cutting, the ECB may need to concede its rate increases and tight money were a mistake…

Like that will ever happen.