Quote of the week

"Core inflation, which excludes volatile items such as food and energy, has been fluctuating around 0.8 per cent [per year, in Europe] since November. Yet each month...[Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank] repeats the mantra that 'inflation expectations are firmly anchored' at close to 2 per cent. He reminds me of Cato the Elder, the Roman senator, who ended all of his speeches in the Senate with the remark that Carthage needed to be destroyed. The difference is that Cato was right."  --Wolfgang Münchau, "Draghi is running out of legal ways to fix the euro," Financial Times, August 17

[For European inflation data, go to https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/prices/hicp/html/inflation.en.html --lt]