The Bond Vigilantes visit the ECB

A couple of weeks ago I went on an incredibly useful trip to Frankfurt, where I met with some key policy makers from the European Central Bank and the Bundesbank, and discussed a range of issues including the timing of exit strategies and rate hikes, the inflation outlook, and the state of the banking sector. 

This video was recorded in early November, and it’s interesting that many of the things I discuss have since become hot news, particularly regarding the timing of rate hikes (central bankers have repeatedly said they’ll stay low for ages) and the state of the European & German banking sectors (eg earlier this week, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the IMF, said that banks have only revealed about half of their losses).

PS The soundtrack is a bit more ‘eurotrance’ than usual – ideally we’d have had 99 Luftballons, which would have been apt, but unfortunately the copyright was too much!