ECB [European Central Bank] Pumping Money Like Mad
Lyndon LaRouche
October 22, 2008 (LPAC)--The European Central Bank (ECB) yesterday pumped a cool half-trillion dollars in liquidity into the disintegrating European banking system--the same day that the Fed, on this side of the Atlantic, stoked the furnace of hyperinflation with $540 billion of its own.
The ECB provided 305 billion euros (about 390 billion dollars, at today's exchange rate) to banks for 7 days, and 700 banks that had asked for it got some of the largess--the biggest "turnout" ever. In addition, the ECB pumped $102 billion for 28 days, and yet another $22.6 billion for currency swaps. Total for the day came to about $515 billion.
Among other things, this indicates that the European interbank market is completely dried out, that the spark which the various national governments' bailout packages were intended to provide to the markets, has not worked. It also shows how, in a situation in which private banks, led in Germany by Deutsche Bank, boycott the governments' bailouts because they dislike coming under certain transparency and controls, the ECB is working against the governments by providing huge sums of money (which the ECB does not even have) with no conditions.