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ECB Boosts Crisis Stimulus With More Bond-Buying, Bank Loans (nationthailand.com)

ECB Boosts Crisis Stimulus With More Bond-Buying, Bank Loans

InternationalDec 11. 2020The European Central Bank (ECB) headquarters stands on the bank of the River Main in Frankfurt, Germany, on April 28, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Alex Kraus. 

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Piotr Skolimowski

The European Central Bank escalated its efforts to shield the euro zone from a possible double-dip recession with another burst of monetary stimulus to lock in low interest rates at least until the pandemic crisis is over.

Policymakers increased and extended emergency bond purchases, and approved more long-term loans on cheap terms for another year. The euro jumped.

Highlights:

– The Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program was increased by 500 billion euros ($606 billion) to 1.85 trillion euros, and extended it by nine months to at least the end of March 2022. Reinvestments will be made until at least the end of 2023.

– An older bond-buying program will continue to run at a monthly pace of 20 billion euros until shortly before interest rates rise.

– Favorable terms on the ECB’s TLTRO-III bank lending program will be extended by 12 months to June 2022, and the ECB will make three new offers under the program next year. Total amount banks can borrow raised to 55% of banks’ stock of eligible loans, from 50%.

– Four additional pandemic emergency longer-term refinancing operations (PELTROs) will be offered in 2021 “to provide an effective liquidity backstop.”

– The easing of collateral rules announced earlier this year will be extended to June 2022. It will reassess the measures before the end date.

– Interest rates remained unchanged, with the deposit rate at -0.5%.

“All these steps are real central-bank engineering — something Lagarde called ‘recalibration’ at the October meeting — but no actual stepping up of monetary stimulus,” said Carsten Brzeski, chief economist at ING Germany. “Instead, the ECB’s main aim is to extend the current level of monetary accommodation.”

The decision came as European Union leaders moved closer to resolving a dispute over a 1.8 trillion-euro joint fiscal package that would put the region on a firmer footing for 2021.

The ECB aims to keep financial conditions loose in the face of mounting debt burdens as governments pump fiscal aid to companies and households. The economy is almost certainly shrinking again, with many shops and restaurants restaurants forced to close to to contain infections.

Also in the background is the risk of a no-deal Brexit. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who held talks over dinner on Wednesday, agreed to give both sides until Sunday to try to bridge their differences.

The euro’s recent surge against the dollar is another headwind for the ECB, putting downward pressure on inflation by making imports cheaper. The single currency rose 0.4% to an intra-day high of $1.2126 following the decision, while German bonds erased gains.

“For me, the last euro downside risk of the year has passed,” said Jordan Rochester, a foreign exchange strategist at Nomura.

Central bankers have been signaling a new round of stimulus for weeks, stressing the need to keep support measures running at least until an economic recovery is entrenched. Covid-19 vaccines are only just being rolled out, and the economic scars from the pandemic will last well past the end of the health emergency.

Chief economist Philip Lane has also stressed the need to get inflation, which is currently below zero, back on its pre-pandemic path toward the goal of just-under 2% as soon as possible.

The Governing Council repeated its pledge to keep stimulus in place until it “judges that the coronavirus crisis phase is over.”

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Trump turns to Congress for help in his election fight (nationthailand.com)

Trump turns to Congress for help in his election fight

InternationalDec 10. 2020President Trump is pictured on Dec. 5, 2020, in Valdosta, Ga. Trump’s congressional allies met privately to pitch a plan about contesting the results of the presidential election. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Jabin Botsford 

By The Washington Post · Rachael Bade, Josh Dawsey, Tom Hamburger

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump is shifting his focus to Congress after the courts roundly rejected his bid to overturn the results of the election, pressuring congressional Republicans into taking a final stand to keep him in power.

Trump’s push is part of a multipronged approach as he also seeks to lobby state and federal lawmakers to give him cover for his unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud, as well as rally support for a last-gasp legal challenge in the Supreme Court that election law experts almost universally dismiss.

The president has been calling Republicans, imploring them to keep fighting and more loudly proclaim the election was stolen while pressing them on what they plan to do. He spoke to Arizona GOP Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward and Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., head of the conservative Republican Study Committee, on Wednesday, and is expected to meet Thursday at the White House with several state attorneys general. Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer and point man in the legal fight, has been making similar calls from the hospital, where he is being treated for covid-19.

The president also has enlisted Vice President Mike Pence to reach out to governors and other party leaders in key states to see what else can be done to help the president. A person familiar with the calls said Pence has not exerted pressure for lawmakers to take specific actions and sees them as “checking in.”

The individual spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly. The vice president’s office declined to comment. Tim Murtaugh of the Trump campaign also declined to comment.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Trump’s conservative allies in the House have been privately buttonholing GOP senators, seeking to enlist one to join in objecting to slates of electors on Jan. 6, according to multiple people familiar with their effort who requested anonymity to discuss their plans.

On that day, Congress meets in joint session to count the electoral votes and declare Joe Biden as the 46th president – with Pence presiding. But if a member of the House and Senate challenge a state’s results, the whole Congress would vote – and the GOP plotting all but assures the routine process could take a dramatic turn, forcing Republicans to choose between accepting the election results or Trump’s bid to overturn the outcome.

Trump has called a number of informal, campaign and White House advisers and asked for help, according to three people who have spoken to him and discussed the calls on the condition of anonymity.

“The request is more, can you feel people out to see if they think the election is a fraud, and are you willing to help us overturn it,” said one person familiar with Trump’s calls, who described it as a “last-ditch effort.” “He’s asking people to check in with their contacts in various battleground states to measure whether there is an appetite to take action from the legislature. He says, ‘Why don’t you see what this person says? Why don’t you see what that person says?”

The pressure on Republicans will grow more intense after the electors meet in each state Monday and cast their votes and as Trump’s hopes in the courts continue to fade. Republicans who have spent four years catering to Trump’s desires could face a choice for which they will be judged in the 2022 midterm elections and 2024 if they have presidential ambitions as the GOP has shown unfettered loyalty to Trump.

Biden won the election with 306 electoral college votes to Trump’s 232, and he leads the national popular vote by more than 7 million. Trump, who has refused to concede, has repeatedly pushed baseless claims and outright falsehoods, insisting that the election was rigged.

Courts and judges across the country have flatly rejected the claims of the Trump campaign and his allies, citing the lack of substantial evidence for his allegations of voter fraud. The effort reached a new nadir on Tuesday when the Supreme Court denied a bid by allies of Trump to reverse Biden’s win in Pennsylvania. Losses also continue to pile up in Arizona, Nevada and Michigan.

None of the handful of lawsuits that remain outstanding are expected to ultimately go Trump’s way. In Wisconsin, a challenge to the results of a partial recount remains pending before a state circuit judge, and a separate federal suit filed by Trump is also unresolved. In Georgia, a small number of suits – including a last-ditch effort by the Republican National Committee – is also still pending.

Rebuffed by the courts, Trump is seeking to enlist another branch of government – Congress – to do his bidding. Some of his fiercest Hill allies are taking up the charge and pressuring their GOP colleagues to join the effort.

Trump called Johnson Wednesday morning, requesting that the conservative leader rally House Republicans to sign onto an amicus brief in an 11th hour Texas lawsuit seeking unprecedented judicial intervention in disallowing the results from four key swing states that went for Biden: Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Johnson eagerly obliged, emailing all House Republicans to solicit signatures for the long-shot Texas case.

In the email, Johnson wrote that Trump “will be anxiously awaiting the final list to review,” ensuring Republicans knew the president would be apprised of who signed on and who didn’t.

“Most of my Republican colleagues in the House, and countless millions of our constituents across the country, now have serious concerns with the integrity of our election system,” Johnson said in a statement. “The purpose of our amicus brief will be to articulate this concern and express our sincere belief that the great importance of this issue merits a full and careful consideration by the court.”

Separately, more than two dozen members of the House Freedom Caucus and other conservatives signed a letter to Trump requesting that he direct Attorney General William Barr to appoint a special counsel to investigate “irregularities” in the election – though Barr himself said last week that the Justice Department had found no evidence to overturn the election results.

In the Senate, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., announced that he would hold a hearing on election “irregularities” on Dec. 16 – two days after the electoral college casts its votes.

Many Republicans have echoed Trump’s baseless claims. Ward, who tweeted that she spoke to Trump, reiterated many of the claims about alleged problems with the election that she and her lawyers have been making unsuccessfully in court in recent weeks. The Arizona Supreme Court rejected her latest case, a formal election contest seeking to annul Biden’s victory, on Tuesday evening, affirming a lower-court ruling that found no evidence of misconduct, fraud or widespread errors.

In Michigan, pressure on state legislators to intervene with the selection of electors continues with daily calls to specific Republican lawmakers in Lansing from Jenna Ellis and other members of the president’s legal team. A state legislative staffer said Wednesday that among the items being discussed by Republicans is whether to intervene or support the Texas case Trump is staking everything on.

On Wednesday, House Republicans in Lansing also issued a statement calling for subpoena powers to be granted to the House Oversight Committee to investigate claims of fraud in the state’s ballot count. Separately, by a vote of 4-3, the Michigan Supreme Court Wednesday rejected a legal appeal of a case challenging the Michigan results.

At the same time, attorneys general in 17 states Trump won tried to apply pressure on the Supreme Court to take up the Texas complaint filed by state Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Trump ally. The court has told the four targeted states – Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia – to respond by Thursday afternoon.

States have constitutional authority to set the rules of an election, and it is almost unheard of for another state to challenge them. But those states supporting Texas said they are protecting their own voters.

Trump has turned it into something of a showdown at the Supreme Court, writing on Twitter Wednesday, “This is the big one. Our Country needs a victory!”

Trump has continued to call state lawmakers in Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania, advisers say, following the news closely in all three states.

The Jan. 6 date in Congress looms large as Trump’s last chance, with the purpose of calls to state lawmakers to get them to pressure members of Congress. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., has said he will challenge the results though it is unclear how many slates of electors he and other Trump allies plan to contest.

The question is whether they can find a Senate Republican to join their effort to trigger votes in the House and Senate.

Earlier this week, Brooks and Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., leader of the House Freedom Caucus, met privately with the Senate Republican Steering Committee leaders, including Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Ted Cruz, R-Texas. According to people familiar with the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the House members pitched both men on their plan and made clear that they need a Senate Republican to join their effort.

The offices of both senators declined to comment on the meeting or whether the senators would heed the request. Asked about the matter Tuesday, Cruz dodged the question and said the courts would be the final decision on the election.

“There are multiple lawsuits raising allegations of fraud and irregularities in this election,” Cruz said. “We need to allow the judicial process to work its way through and resolve those claims.”

Conservatives also have been eyeing Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who may have future presidential ambitions and would join the effort to make a last stand for Trump.

Republicans also hope to recruit Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., who is locked in a competitive Georgia runoff election set for Jan. 5. Conservatives believe that if she were to announce that she will join the House effort and object to state electors, Loeffler could rally the GOP base and secure her election against Democrat Raphael Warnock.

Loeffler’s office did not return a request for comment, but one individual familiar with the recruitment process said conservatives have been in touch with her.

If the whole Congress is forced to vote, it would likely fail in the Democratic-controlled House and face resistance in the Senate.

“It’s just simply madness,” said Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah. “The idea of supplanting the vote of the people with partisan legislators, is, is so completely out of our national character that it’s simply mad. Of course the president has the right to challenge results in court, to have recounts. But this effort to subvert the vote of the people is dangerous and destructive of the cause of democracy.”