Does anyone know of a good, brief overview of the Eurozone crisis written by an expert?

[isaiahrobinson]

@clairobscur

To be a bit more accurate, the duties of the ECB have been defined by a treaty. So, it’s not up to Germany to decide what the ECB can or can’t do. Even though Germany has been the main crusader for the cause of an ECB only in charge of limiting inflation, changing the rules would require the agreement of all the member countries, and not a mere agreement on a table’s corner in the middle of the night, but the signing/ratifying of an amended treaty.

The only thing the ECB is restricted from doing by Treaty is buying bonds directly from Italy or Spain. It’s allowed to buy bonds on the secondary market from everyone else. In fact it’s already done so for Italy, it just didn’t buy very many of them. What economists like Krugman want to see happen is for the ECB to announce that it will start buying, and continue to buy, Italian bonds until its interest rate stabilizes - ie. they want it to promise to act as the “lender of last resort”. That’s something that just needs an agreement on a table corner in the middle of the night.