Really enjoyed listening to @Paschald at the @iiea

But it's obvious that politicians/policymakers don't fully understand what the @ecb is doing, and the effect of the multiple monetary policies they are deploying.

This means they default to a conservative fiscal position.

Their fiscal risk-averse is understandable.

They're scared of financial markets.

But Central Banks shape and structure finance markets.

Unless the ECB is politically willing to throw countries to the wolves, their risk-aversion is unfounded.

The probability of interest rates increasing is extremely low.

Whether politicians like to admit it or not, the ECB is a powerful political actor.

It is time to make this distributional politics explicit, and socialise monetary policy for the public good.

This also means rethinking fiscal-monetary policy.

But given the technical complexity in a lot of these economic debates, journalists tend to avoid them.

This leaves a huge political vacuum that is easily filled with soundbites and fear mongering about public debt.

The empirical question that Leo and Paschal need to consider is the following:

On the basis of what empirical evidence/model do they think that interest rates will rise?

On the basis of what empirical evidence/model do they think there's a strict ceiling to public borrowing?