Bailing out Greece is one thing. But Spain and Italy too? Germany may have reached the end of its patience in purchasing bonds from debt-ridden states: In a cannon shot across Europe's bows, he warned that Germany is reaching bailout exhaustion and cannot allow its own democracy to be undermined by EU mayhem. "I regard the huge buy-up of bonds of individual states by the ECB as legally and politically questionable. Article 123 of the Treaty on the EU's workings prohibits the ECB from directly purchasing debt instruments, in order to safeguard the central bank's independence," he said. "This prohibition only makes sense if those responsible do not get around it by making substantial purchases on the secondary market," he said, speaking at a forum of half the world's Nobel economists on Lake Constance to review the errors of the profession over recent years. Mr Wulff said the ECB had gone "way beyond the bounds of their mandate" by purchasing €110bn (£96.6bn) of bonds, echoing...(Read Full Post)