G.O.O.D

Jean-Claude Trichet

Source: Bloomberg.com: Germany

European Central Bank President Jean- Claude Trichet said the euro region’s economy will shrink next year for the first time since 2003 after the bank delivered the biggest interest rate cut in its 10-year history.

“Global and euro-area demand are likely to be dampened for a protracted period of time,” Trichet said at a press conference in Brussels today. The ECB lowered its benchmark by three quarters of a percentage point to 2.5 percent.

The ECB’s decision came after the Bank of England today cut its key rate by one percentage point to 2 percent and Sweden’s central bank lowered borrowing costs by the most since 1992. The Federal Reserve’s benchmark rate now matches a five-decade low as central banks rush to respond to the global recession.

“The level of uncertainty remains exceptionally high,” Trichet said. The euro was little changed after his comments and traded at $1.2634 at 3:16 p.m. in Brussels.

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Interesting column

Source: FT.com

Germany’s boycott of a co-ordinated European response to this crisis has become serious and persistent. Only a day after the European Commission proposed a modest European Union-wide stimulus of 1.5 per cent of gross domestic product, Peer Steinbrück, the German finance minister, declared that Berlin would reject any co-ordinated EU-level response on the spurious grounds that Germany would have to pay a quarter of the costs.

Yet even he knows that economic conditions have deteriorated more rapidly in the past four weeks than at any stage in our lifetimes. I expect that eurozone – and German – GDP will decline by anything between 2 and 4 per cent next year. Even the more optimistic forecasters admit that the risk is on the downside. So how come the Germans are so complacent?

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