Fed’s Bullard Says ECB Debt Buying Would Be Fiscal Policy

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said purchases of sovereign debt by the European Central Bank would amount to fiscal policy that is better conducted by democratically elected governments.

“This is ‘fiscalization’ of monetary policy: Asking the central bank to take actions far outside the remit of monetary policy,” Bullard said today in a speech to a conference of economists in San Diego. “Assistance like this from a central authority to a region is best brokered through the political process in democratically elected bodies.”