[mattduke]

The European Central Bank is unlikely to escape its role as reluctant bond buyer anytime soon.
This week, the central bank finally gave the market what it yearned for: purchasing Italian and Spanish sovereign debt. The move was a controversial extension of a policy credited with quelling selling pressure on the bonds of financially strapped Ireland, Portugal and Greece.
Yields on Italian and Spanish bonds have fallen, indicating the ECB has managed to inject some calm into trigger-happy markets. But the fact that it's buying bonds at all is indicative of how Europe's debt crisis is mutating.

The market is not yearning for Italian and Spanish bonds. That's the(ir) problem.
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-201 ... 16827.html

[argyle]

If the fed is already in QE3, I think the ECB has a lot more to print before they catch up

Because of all the money printing in the US, WW inflation is going to take hold anyway.. So why not help it along a bit and solve a couple of your own problems in the own way.. Currently the US is offloading their problems, by printing money, to other countries.