Quotenfrau und Mansplaining

Ist ja ein toller Vorgang.

Die hier meinen, dass die Präsidentin der Europäischen Zentralbank Christine Lagarde mangels Kompetenz und Sachkunde dumm dahergeschwätzt habe und der Chef-Ökonom dann bei Banken und Investoren rumtelefonieren musste, um das Geschwätz wieder geradezurücken.

Translation: he “explained” to a highly privileged group of ultra-wealthy investors not to sell their bonds because Lagarde had no idea what she was saying, and that he would make it clear to her what she “meant to say.”

Of course, this is hardly the first time the ECB has gotten in trouble for sharing market-moving confidential information with a group of “close friends.” It’s merely the last time… and the optics are as horrible as ever. Indeed as the WSJ writes, citing former central bank officials – odd how it’s always former central bank officials who tell the truth, never current ones – said “the calls risked privileging big investors with sensitive information.”

Whereas central bankers carefully control their utterances and try to make sure all market participants get information at the same time – at least in public – diaries show that neither Lagarde’s predecessor, Mario Draghi, nor his chief economist, Peter Praet, made similar calls during their last two years in office. That’s because back then they were smarter: they would only share confidential, inside information face to face. Even so they still got caught, and in 2015, the ECB tightened its communication rules after a board member gave a closed-door speech to investors at a dinner that revealed changes to its bond-buying program.

Since then, the ECB was especially careful not to get caught leaking central bank flow information… until the inexperienced Lagarde took over and immediately found herself in a historic crisis, where every word mattered. The problem is that she had no idea how to calm markets and that’s why her chief economist had to follow through with just a handful of key accounts and explain that everything is ok and the ECB would stabilize the selloff “whatever it takes.”

Ich habe es nicht völlig durchverstanden. Es ist denen wohl verboten, manche bei ihren Informationen zu bevorzugen, was schon mal Ärger gab, weshalb sie da seither immer sehr vorsichtig waren. Bis jetzt die Lagarde kenntnisfrei blöd dahergeschwätzt hat.