And what we're arguing is that it's toxic for the rest of the Eurozone to have by far the largest and currently most solvent country in the Eurozone acting on that obsession.

One thing we have pointed out is that after the summer of 2011 even France had lost any of the political leverage it may have had (and, again, reportedly Sarkozy got to make credible threats in the Spring of 2010 - now Merkel thinks she needs to help him with his reelection). So now it's just a Germany with a decades-old unhealthy obsession with public debt alone in the driving seat. Or do the Netherlands, Finland and Luxembourg set EU Council policy independently of Germany?

tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker