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Amazon Prime has a trailer on King Charles's vision of a revolution for climate change action. The idea is to get a broader audience through streaming. The film title is -Finding Harmony: A King’s Vision.   Kate Winslett tells the story of King Charles and his vision.  It includes new footage of Charles with David Beckham, Meryl Streep. The film has been narrated by Kate Winslet, which was for Winslet “both a pleasure and a privilege” as she is part of the King's Foundation. The King’s Foundation said: “This documentary aims to showcase the importance of harmony to a new audience, and highlight the urgent action needed to help protect our planet, as His Majesty reflects on his life’s work across nature, sustainability and the environment.” The film is based on the King’s 2010 book, Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World. “This is a call to revolution. Revolution is a strong word, and I use it deliberately. The many environmental and social problems that now loom large on our horizon cannot be solved by carrying on with the very approach that has caused them. This will involve taking all sorts of dramatic steps to change the way we consider the world and act in it.” “The book is not just trying to raise the points about getting an electric car and some organic carrots. “This is about thinking fundamentally about the relationship we have with the life-support systems that sustain us and everything else and, indeed, the relationships between all of us, and how we organise our society, including our economy, and making points about circularity in our economic system, and how we might be inspired by nature in terms of how we think about resource use and how we look at ideas like economic growth.” ...

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As the ECB reduces its monthly purchases under its QE program to 60 billion euros from 80 billion euros starting in April 2017, the initial market reaction was that quantitative easing was going out. This says Barley is not the case, and markets are overreacting. The ECB is now ready to buy bonds yielding less than the deposit rate. The ECB promised to extend purchases to Dec. 2017 or further. Look deeper says Barley and ECB forecasts headline inflation at 1.7% in 2019, less than 2% target. So continued QE made sense but at a lower pace. In the end it is the flow that matters not the stock of purchases, says Barley.

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In a effort to boost slowing economies in the European Union, the head of the European Central Bank, Mr. Draghi, announces interest rates will remain unchanged till 2020. He also announced a fresh stimulus, offering cheap loans to jumpstart the economy. Economic growth forecasts were cut to 1.1% for 2019 down from 1.7% earlier. Growth of just 0.2% in the last quarter of 2018 prompted action by the ECB.

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European economies are likely to weather the winter better than expected with sufficient energy supplies on hand after the Russian cutoff of oil and gas. This means says this WSJ column that the central bank for Europe, the ECB, can continue to raise interest rates to fight inflation. As Fed chairman Jay Powell pointed out at the Brookings Institution recently out of control inflation poses a major risk for upward mobility in American society. This is a risk that exists in both the US and Europe. In this sense 2023 is a critical year for the Fed and the ECB, for Lagarde and for Jay Powell, to bring it back under control.

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The European central bank chief and former French finance minister takes a dim view of crypto currency. It has called for direct regulation of crypto currency, and their inclusion in anti money laundering and terrorist financing laws. ECB's view is- "Since Bitcoin is suitable neither as a payment system nor as an investment, it should be treated as neither in regulatory terms and should not be legitimised."

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Under a new program the ECB will tilt the purchase of bonds for maturing debt towards weaker economies. Leading to purchase of $208 billion of bonds of weaker  economies such as Italy. Italy's bond yields climbed to 4.2% in June 2022. This will help prevent the fragmentation of the bonds in Europe into segments and is part of new thinking at ECB after the pandemic. Italy's bond yields dropped and stocks gained after the announcing of the decision. Under Merkel such decisions simply would not take place with the different thinking under that administration.  Today solidarity is uppermost in EU after the pandemic at EU in Brussels, at the ECB, and at the chancellor's office in Germany. No one even thinks twice about this.  Italian bond yields dropped from about and its stock index gained 3.2%. The stress in eurozone is reflected by the gap between the yields of 10 year German and Italian government bonds. It dropped from 2.4% to 2.13% after the decision. To keep the two yields close and not fragment eurozone yields is what preventing fragmentation means. ...

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The ECB is making plans to meet new staffing needs to act as the supervisor of 6000 banks in the 17 country eurozone. As part of its effort to meet its new role as banking supervisor starting in mid-2014 the ECB will hire about 800 new supervisory staff by that date. Additional personnel will be added following this first step, according to ECB officials.

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The European Central Bank follows the US Federal Reserve in raising interest rates. The ECB raised rates by half a percentage point. The Fed earlier raised rates by three quarters of a percentage point. The effort is to tackle inflation before it takes root in US and Europe.

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The eurozone economy has grown by 3.6% and created 4 million jobs since the start of the bond buying program by the European Central Bank in 2015, according to the ECB. This means that the program has largely accomplished what it set out to do to revive the eurozone economy.

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The basic architecture to support the euro currency is being proposed in a seven page report prepared by presidents of the EU Council, the ECB, the EC and the Eurogroup. This includes deposit insurance to protect against a run on banks, a European bank supervisor with possibly the ECB in that role, and the European Financial Stability Facility, the eurozone rescue fund, acting as a backup if deposit and resolution funds need support. Currently the European Banking Authority setup after the 2008 crisis works with central banks of the individual countries to regulate the banks. In contrast to sanctions imposed for overspending under prior EU agreements the report says new powers would be transferred to a European Authority on the fiscal side so that overspending can be controlled at the European level and budget deficits are set at the European level.

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After inflation drops to 2.3% in the eurozone in December 2024 the British pound rises to 1.21 euros and 1.04 US dollars. The ECB says its decision to cut rates to 3% was a result of inflation forecasts showing a further drop in inflation to 1.9% by 2026. Growth in eurozone was also updated to 0.7% in 2024 and 1.1% in 2025. 

The Fed is likely to make a further interest rate cut and the Bank of England keep it steady at 4.75%.

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A cut in interest rates by a quarter percentage point from the U.S. central bank is a decision that comes from the U.S. not wanting to see too wide a gap in interest rates with the European Union. Losing demand to Europe and resulting lower inflation is an outcome prevented by the U.S. acting to protect its own economy with  acut in its rate. The ECB rate at 0.4% is about 3 percentage points below the Federal Reserve's rate in the U.S. After the cuts in rates to near zero by the central banks of U.S. and Europe following the financial crisis caused by poor lending practices of banks, the U.S. central bank began a process of bringing rates to about 3%. Lower rates near zero badly hurt savings accounts of ordinary Americans. By December 2018 the rates had reached 2.25%.  President Trump has called for lower rates. because of the advantages it gives Europe in trade balances with a weaker currency that follows from lower interest rates. Capital flows to the country with higher rates and increases the value of the currency creating trade disadvantages and lower trade balances. WIth European interest rates much lower than the U.S. it pushes down the value of the euro vs the dollar and the British pound lower from Brexit fears. This increases European exports putting the U.S.  at a disadvantage. As the WSJ points out the U.S. central bank says though Mr. Trump is looking at trade balances and U.S. advantage, and Mr. Powell at the U.S. central bank is looking at U.S. inflation, the result for policy is the same- the U.S. acting to cut rates and stay close to what the European Union is doing. Bond yields in Europe have dropped from a negative 0.24% to negative 0.32% with the ECB's head Mr. Draghi moving to cut rates. The announcement of Ms. Christine Lagarde as the new head of the ECB to succeed Draghi and her views to push demand up, is pushing bond yields down. The U.S. as part of the globally linked economy has to act in line with policies in Europe. ...

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The ECB's effort to attract talent from national central banks to fulfill its role as supervisor of 7000 banks in the eurozone countries by the second half of 2014. Supervisors who are hired will be located at the ECB's headquarters in Frankfurt. The ECB positions offer attractive perks for young workers with families and children.

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The ECB president Draghi announces an interest rate cut, lowering the interest rate in the eurozone to 0.15% from 0.25%. He also lowered the rate on overnight bank deposits at the ECB to a negative 0.10%, to encourage banks to lend at a time when credit is tight for businesses in the eurozone. The eurozone faces a risk of deflation with low growth in the eurozone economies. Popular discontent was reflected in eurozone elections in France, UK, Greece and Spain.

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In an effort to calm unsettled global financial markets ECB president Mario Draghi said in a speech on July 26, 2012: "Within our mandate, the ECB is willing to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro and, believe me, it will be enough." Yields on Spain's government bonds reached 7.5% as investors shunned Spanish bonds fearing the need for a government bailout.

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Faced with low eurozone inflation of annualized 0.7% in October 2013, and low growth, the ECB lowers interest rates in the eurozone by 0.25%. The risk from deflationary pressures is high in Oct 2013. Weakening the euro from $1.38 in Oct. 2013 to $1.34 following the rate cut helps increase inflation through higher price for imports and helps boost exports. This brings rates close to zero and the ECB having to resort to quantitative easing in future efforts.

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523 European banks borrowed 489 billion euros from the European Central Bank on Dec. 21, 2011, under the newly created Long Term Financing Operation of the ECB. This is designed to meet the financing needs of European banks which are shutoff from normal financing of selling unsecured bonds to private investors because of market anxiety. Much of this is for replacing other outstanding ECB loans, with analysts estimating about 190 billion euros of new liquidity being injected into the banking system. This also has the effect of reducing the borrowing rates for government bonds. In Spain the government sold 5.6 billion euros of government bonds at an auction on Dec. 20, 2011, with the interest rates dropping from 5.7% a month earlier to 1.7%. Small and midsize banks in Spain helped surging demand by buying the bonds to use as collateral for three year loans from the ECB at 1%.

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Barley points to the other factors surrounding the ECB decision for massive monetary easing on Jan. 22, 2015. THe ZEW and IFO business sentiment indicators show an upward trend, and the German economy is picking up momentum in 2015. The lower oil prices, and the decline in the euro boosting exports, are two other factors pointing to higher growth in 2015. Just as the U.S. QE program came at a time when economic conditions were improving, the same can be said for the Draghi ECB QE program in Europe, says Barley. Draghi appears to have sent a strong signal to financial markets, just as he accomplished in July 2012, when bond yields of Spain and Italy were over 7%.

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Government bonds will be purchased by central banks of each country roughly in proportion to the size of their national economies in the eurozone. Risks for 80% of the purchases of bonds in the $1 trillion program will be borne by the central bank of each country. For 12% of the remaining bonds purchases will be made in the European Investment Bank bonds, here risk will be shared with the ECB. For the remaining 8% the ECB itself will make bond purchases. This avoids a situation where the risk of bonds going down in value is borne by that country and not passed on to other countries in the eurozone, as a matter of fairness in distributing risks. This also limits moral hazard where painful budget decisions are not made by countries in need of budget overhauls because risk can be passed on. A big reason why this can work in 2015 is that the eurozone has already emerged from the crisis period of 2012-2013, and is beginning to experience growth in 2015. Just this kind of boost to lending was provided by the U.S. Federal Reserve when the U.S. emerged from its crisis period in 2009-2011, and helped the economy grow in 2013-2014....

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Figures from the European Commission and the ECB show that the ECB's balance sheet reached 32% of eurozone GDP in March 2012. Comparable figures for the U.S. Federal Reserve for March 2012 are 19%, Bank of England 21% and the Bank of Japan 30%. The ECB's balance sheet in March 2012 is at 3.023 trillion euros. ECB president Mario Draghi says this is high but "it will be managed very well."

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ECB president, Mario Draghi, is interviewed by Wall Street Journal reporters Blackstone, Karnitschnig, and Thomson, at his offices in Frankfurt. The reporters press questions such as- are austerity measures going to work in Greece, what happens with Portugal, what is "good" and "bad" austerity, why aren't eurobonds the answer. Draghi sidesteps the Greece question by saying it will depend on implementation of the commitments in fiscal policy and structural change. He takes the discussion to the general situation in southern Europe, in Italy and Spain, with the high youth unemployment and inflexible labor markets, making the point that there is no alternative to fiscal consolidation considering the excessive debt to GDP ratios of Italy, Spain and other countries. Good fiscal consolidation is where the taxes are reduced and government expenditure is on infrastructure and capital investments. Bad fiscal consolidation merely raises taxes, leaves current expenditures as is, and reduces capital investments. From his experience with the situation in Italy- and a similiar situation exists in Spain- Draghi points to the ways in which inflexible labor markets for the protected part of the population leads to temporary work contracts and few job opportunities for young people. The unemployment rate in Spain for young people exceeds 50%. Draghi's view is that fiscal consolidation is contractionary in the short term, but leads to growth in the longer term as structural changes are made and the confidence channel operates. It is also necessary to be put in place first, so that there is time to put the structural changes in place. He sees the program in Portugal on track. At the same time Draghi is aware of the drying up of credit in Spain, Italy and other countries even after the Long Term Financing Operation, and will respond as the situation changes. On the point of eurobonds, Draghi says it cannot be accepted that you spend and I pay, countries spend as they see fit and then they issue bonds jointly. For there to be trust its essential that each country stand on its own, and this is also a condition for setting up a durable fiscal union. This aspect of his views are consistent with the views of German chancellor Merkel and the northern European countries, Germany, Netherlands, Finland. Draghi is not new to this job after being president of the ECB for 4 months. He was on the Governing Council of the ECB for 6 years and has a good grasp of decisions made in the past. When asked if there is more that he could do for growth, Draghi's response is that the ECB will do the most it can do for price stability in the medium term and at the same time within the terms of the Treaty to promote financial stability. ...

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The European Union's Advocate General says he wants to open a third way so that MP's who support Britain remaining in the EU in the face of unsatisfactory Brexit can do so. This is legal advice usually followed by the European Court of Justice so that litigants who are MP's favoring Remain to unilaterally revoke the notification of the intention to withdraw. Prime Minister May is expected to put her EU agreement for vote in parliament in a week.

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An account of ECB chairman Mario Draghi's efforts to overcome the opposition of the Bundesbank to unlimited bond purchases by the ECB of sovereign bonds to reduce borrowing rates of Italy and Spain. Draghi argued that it was within the mandate of the ECB because of irrational fears in bond markets that were creating excessive rates for bond yields and not normal behaviour of capital markets, and therefore within the ECB's mandate to maintain financial stability and protect the euro currency. This was supported by finance minister Schauble and German chancellor Merkel over opposition of the Bundesbank and German media on July 23, 2012, when Draghi said of his determination to protect Spain and Italy from excessive yields and of the ECB action: "believe me it will be enough."

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ECB President Trichet calls for the equivalent of "a fiscal federation" for the European Union, a broadening of powers of the European Commission when it comes to fiscal issues. He called for an independent agency housed within the European Commission, with powers to hand out sanctions on countries with poor fiscal management. Such sanction have to come early and could take the form of suspending member's voting rights in financial affairs. Such reforms would have to come through secondary legislation, and not a renegotiation of the EU treaty.