The author has been described by News Ltd as an "iconoclast", "Svengali", a pollie's "economist muse", and "pungently accurate". Fairfax says he is a "Renaissance man" and "one of Australia’s most respected analysts." Stephen Koukoulas concludes that he is "85% right", and "would make a great Opposition leader." Terry McCrann claims the author thinks "‘nuance’ is a trendy village in the south of France", but can be "scintillating" when he thinks "clearly". The ACTU reckons he’s "an enigma wrapped in a Bloomberg terminal, wrapped in some apparently well-honed abs."

Thursday, January 5, 2012

The Bundesbank is “like cream; the more you whip it the harder it gets.”

Brilliant from Oliver Marc Hartwich:

As Dutch central banker Wim Duisenberg once said, the Bundesbank is “like cream; the more you whip it the harder it gets.” This solidified the bank’s almost mythical reputation as an institution outside the political sphere, an institution to which inflation-wary Germans happily trusted their money. Former European Commission President Jacques Delors famously remarked, “Not all Germans believe in God, but they all believe in the Bundesbank.”

at 10:33 PM