ECB launches last-ditch program to revive euro economy
Reuters - Jan 22, 2015
The European Central Bank took the ultimate policy leap on Thursday, launching a government bond-buying program which will pump hundreds of billions of new money into a sagging euro zone economy.
The ECB said it would buy government bonds from this March until the end of September 2016 despite opposition from Germany's Bundesbank and concerns in Berlin that it could allow spendthrift countries to slacken economic reforms.
Together with existing schemes to buy private debt and funnel hundreds of billions of euros in cheap loans to banks, the new quantitative easing program will pump 60 billion euros ($68.8 billion) a month into the economy, ECB President Mario Draghi said.
