Josef Stalin said it best many years ago. He said the people who cast the votes decide nothing, the people who count the votes decide everything.
by Bob Rinear
The International Forecaster
Is it possible to find a similarity between Donald Trump and Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank? Not really, not when you are comparing the two people. But maybe what you can do is make the case for what these two have done as far as affecting people.
[…] Over in Europe, their economy has been as stagnant as ours and maybe more so when you look at places like Italy and Greece. So a year ago they implemented the all too familiar “QE” programs to spur growth. Along with lowering deposit rates to NEGATIVE 0.3%, they embarked on a 60 billion Euro a month QE bond buying spree.
It didn’t work. Just like the gimmicks we tried here in the states, the QE and money printing merely kept the economies alive, like zombies. They were functioning but they weren’t vibrant and alive. So, what did Draghi do on Thursday to spur more growth? In a strange twist, he doubled down on what didn’t work the first time. He cut rates even further into negative territory and he increased the amount of bond buying QE from 60 to 80 billion a month.