The Power And The Impotence Of The ECB - Steve Keen

``Clearly the ECB does not know how the economy works. Not only did it--and all other Central Banks--not anticipate the crisis in which it is now embroiled, its policies to try to restore what it sees as normal (unemployment of about 5-6% and inflation of about 2%) have thus far failed. Even on their most favourable forecasts, the Euro region won't achieve its pre-crisis level of output until early 2016. Not only does this make the crisis far longer and deeper than any post-WWII European downturn, it also underscores how poorly Europe has performed compared to the USA. There the 2008 crisis also ranks as the longest and deepest downturn, but the USA returned to pre-crisis output in less than half the time that the Europeans hope that they will end up doing.''