Showing posts with label M3 money supply. Show all posts
Showing posts with label M3 money supply. Show all posts

Friday, January 20, 2012

20/1/2012: A view from ECB's airconditioned halls

I am sure you are all aware of this, but here is a chart on the euro area monetary aggregates:


Do you spot much of drama here? No? How about a snapshot?
No prizes for guessing an answer: there is no drama in monetary policy path chosen by the ECB through the entire period of August 2007-present. None. Which, of course, is surprising, as outside the euro monetary policymakers halls, there was and still is plenty of drama - from banks liquidity crunches, to sovereign debt crises, to sovereign deficits crises, to recessions and double-dips, to unemployment rising, to banks assets valuations crisis, to inflation falling out of sync with FX valuations, to sovereign credit crunches, to socialization of banks losses... and so on. All of the above should have an effect on a monetary policy. Some in less interventionist fashion (but with at least an ex post correlation to the aggregates), and some with more interventionist fashion (with monetary policy being a major tool for dealing with them).

Alas, all is calm, trend(y)-like in the well airconditioned offices of ECB.