Doug Henwood wrote:
> The Euro central bank makes the Fed look like a model of accountability.
> Maastricht specifies that the president of the ECB and its governing board
> must be restricted to "persons of recognized standing and professional
> experience in monetary or banking matters," language even more restrictive
> than the U.S. law regulating appointments to the Fed's board of governors,
> where the president is required to pay "due regard to a fair representation
> of the financial, agricultural, industrial, and commercial interests" of
> the country and its regions.
You're totally right, this ECB is unbelievable. There is even in the
Maastricht treaty a rule which says that it is forbidden to try to
influence the members of the board of the ECB. Also, directors of the
bank are in for only one period, to avoid that in the last years they
start worrying about their re-election and therefore may feel tempted
to take popular measures or listen (they should not) to governments or
parliaments.
> And they're so busy being deflationists, I
> don't think they have the lender of last resort thing worked out at all,
> even though the IMF predicts massive financial turmoil as capacity is
> shaken out.
Right again, this is an unsolved problem they're working on if I
understand the press overhere well. Maintaining price stability is the
only task formulated for the ECB, employment and things like that are
not even in the task description.
Robert Went
=====================================
Drs. Robert Went
Faculty of Economics and Econometrics
University of Amsterdam
Roeterstraat 11, k 9.03
1018 WB Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel: 31-20-525.4189
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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