ECB Stands Pat as Eurozone Continues Recessionary Slide

I've often been critical of  St Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard, but as I today watch the European Central Bank issue yet another statment of no policy change even in the face of deteriorating economic conditions, my thoughts turn to some wise remarks he made last weekend in San Diego. His point was that there's a striking contrast between Mario Draghi's willingness to get involved in some very unorthodox measures related to government finance in Spain and Italy and his seeming indifference to the idea that eurozone monetary policy ought to try to stabilize aggregate demand. He's done a lot of unusual, fairly activist things to "help solve the eurozone crisis" in other words but he hasn't been willing to do the banal things that central bankers do keep economies out of recession. And yet, even though such measures would hardly solve every problem in Spa...