"BERLIN (Reuters) - Bundesbank President Ernst Welteke resigned in a dispute with the government on Friday after two weeks of intense pressure to quit for .....
.....letting a top German bank pay an expensive hotel bill".
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?type=businessNews&storyIDH51941§ion=news) For public consumption: Inappropriate behaviour of a regulator in accepting, er, 'a gift' from the regulatee
Real story? ECB wants to cut rates and Welteke was in the way
Real story? Can't have the fox watching the henhouse
Where's the gold folks?!
B J Foster wrote:
This story has it all:
> 1. Central bankers "softening up" the public via the media
>
> 2. Central bankers "insisting" that the ECB "could not let itself be
> 'pushed around by governments'"
>
> 3. Central bankers leaking 'internal' documents forecasting inflation
> (Huh? Why is this information not made PUBLIC as a matter of course??? >
> 4. Central bankers accepting gifts from private banks...
>
> 5. ...character assassination via leaks to the press...
>
>
> "ECB in crisis as rate cut blocked by revolt
> ...
> EU sources said Mr Trichet had pledged a rate cut to Europe's political
> leaders but faced unexpectedly stubborn resistance from German and Dutch
> colleagues. Mr Trichet and his allies had signalled a rate cut through a
> 'softening-up' campaign in the media, while key national capitals were
> reassured that monetary policy would at last be loosened.
>
> The campaign was accompanied by a LEAK OF INTERNAL ECB documents
> forecasting a sharp fall in the inflation rate next year to 1.3pc,
> clearing the way for rate cuts.
>
> Mr Trichet's less than subtle campaign infuriated a bloc of hardliners
> led by Germany's Bundesbank, who resented the way the ECB was being
> 'bounced' into rate cuts. Officials say Germany's Otmar Issing and
> Holland's Nout Wellink orchestrated a counter-coup, insisting that the
> ECB could not let itself be 'pushed around by governments'".
>
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>
>
> ...followed by:
>
> "Germany's central bank said its President Ernst Welteke will not resign
> despite drawing continuing fire from media over a big hotel bill that a
> commercial bank settled for him two years ago.
> ...
> 'If a Bundesbank head makes such a grave misjudgement of public opinion,
> one is justified in asking whether he has a better judgement of the
> economic situation', Financial Times Deutschland wrote.
>
> 'He neither possesses a large amount of economic expertise, nor does he
> shine with intellectual brilliance', the newspaper added, also calling
> Welteke an 'awful' central banker".
> (Source:
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> (Original:
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>