The European Central Bank (ECB) meets next month to discuss, in part, whether to get rid of the €500 note. There may be no saving the note, even though a raft of articles have popped up showing how Germans, in particular, prefer the large denomination note. You’d expect a country with a recent memory of hyperinflation to be sensitive to anything that steals real purchasing power out of the hands of ordinary people.
But an even more interesting sideshow to the ECB rate decision is the criticism being levelled at Mario Draghi by German politicians. “I am not happy about low interest rates,” German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble recently said. “I would prefer higher interest rates,” he added.
A simple suggestion
This was just a few weeks after Schäuble suggested that Draghi himself was responsible for the success of far right parties in local German elections. The suggestion is quite simple. Experimental policy – negative interest rates and quantitative easing – benefits asset owners and borrowers at the expense of interest and wage earners.
Does it surprise anyone that tinkering with monetary values undermines the fabric of civil society? When you can’t get ahead through hard work and by playing according to clear rules that are applied to everyone equally, you’re going to have a strong sense of grievance against the political system. It’s only a matter of time before some clever angry man on a white horse rides to your rescue bearing bullets and a list of people to blame.
At this point, political interference with central banks may be the only thing stopping them from ruining the economy. Will the Germans step in to save their beloved euro project before the ECB ruins it? Or is it already too late?
Category: Central Banks