Sorry for the hiatus, but I am preparing a large note on the ECB, whether it is conducting QE or not, what QE at the ECB is, and finally what the prospects of an exit strategy is. This has taken most of my time the last week. I will be posting this report shortly. Meanwhile, I will leave you with the following fresh report from the FT about the earnings derived from the ECB's open market operations (emphasis is mine) which is naturally, although not directly, related to  my analysis;

The European Central Bank has made up to €1bn in extra profits from crisis-related emergency lending, but its caution on unconventional policy measures has curbed potential earnings, analysts estimate. Extra liquidity pumped into the eurozone banking system since the collapse of Lehman Brothers last year has probably generated an extra €900m ($1.5bn, £780m) in

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by Edward Hugh: Barcelona br /br /Well reading the press this morning it would be fairly easy to reach the conclusion that nothing really happened yesterday in Brussels, and that a great opportunity was lost. The latter may finally be true, but the former most certainly is not. br /br /Let's look first at what was not decided on Sunday. The leaders of the 27 member countries in the European Union most certainly did not vote to back a proposal from Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany for a 180-billion-euro ($228 billion) aid package for central and eastern Europe. They did not back it because it was not even seriously on the agenda at this point. These people move slowly and we need to talk them throught one step at a time. So what was on the agenda. EU bonds for one, and a href="http://edwardhughtoo.blogspot.com/2009/02/let-east-into-eurozone-now.html"accelerated euro membership for the East for ...

I am pretty much up to my ears at the moment with, of all things, a country outlook/analysis on Chile. This means that I have not exactly had time to do my usual tour of the recent economic data from the Eurozone and Eastern Europe. I hope to redeem myself at a later point next week.

Meanwhile I thought that I would round up this week at Alpha.Sources with a couple of pointers on a range of recently debated topics.

Hank Paulson, his Bazooka, and a European Perspective

Good old Hank Paulson certainly seems to be under the spotlight at the moment (see also my last post), not least in these two Bloomberg pieces from today and yesterday respectively. As could have been predicted it is all about who and what which will eventually make it under the soothing umbrella of the incoming treasury bail-out.

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