Conducting monetary policy through the discount window is not an excuse for bailing out insolvent banks. Insolvent banks should be put through bankruptcy. Keeping them alive is not "helping."

And anyway, this isn't about the Irish banks anymore. It's about the Irish government debt. Why is this so hard to understand?

Incidentally, if the ECB were doing its job as a central bank and fixing the price of government bonds, then we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place.

- Jake

If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.