Christine Lagarde to replace Mario Draghi as European Central Bank President

[sandensea]

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde has emerged as the choice to replace Mario Draghi as President of the European Central Bank (ECB) President later this year following two days of tense negotiations in Brussels.

Officials in Berlin say that Chancellor Angela Merkel is a fan of Lagarde and she would enjoy widespread support from among the governing Christian Democrats.

The combination of Lagarde and Von der Leyen however was proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron in a conversation with Merkel on Monday night, an EU official said.

Lagarde, 63, a lawyer by trade who has no direct monetary policy experience, has served as France's Finance Minister from 2007 until 2011, when she took over as IMF Managing Director following the resignation of her French countryman, Dominque Strauss-Kahn, who left the post in Washington after being accused of sexual assault during a visit to New York.

Lagarde faces immense challenges, however, when she takes over from Draghi in a few months' time.

These include the region's moribund growth prospects, its stubbornly-low inflation rate and the nearly-depleted ECB toolkit that has spent more than €2.6 trillion in government, agency and corporate bond purchases and only once managed to lift the region's consumer price index into the Bank's 'just below 2%' target.

At: https://www.thestreet.com/investing/fixed-income/christine-lagarde-to-replace-mario-draghi-as-european-central-bank-president-15008902

IMF Director Christine Lagarde with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Argentine President Mauricio Macri during the G20 summit in Buenos Aires last year.

Lagarde's tenure at the IMF has been strongly supported by the Trump administration. But she has reaped criticism for a record, $56 billion bailout of Argentina, 77% of which is being used to finance capital flight - against the IMF's own rules.

[Farmer-Rick]

1. Traitor Trump wants her so she's probably pretty awful.

But the European bank doesn't seem to do much to help most people. They didn't keep the crash from rampaging through their communities and of course they bailed out the rich only on the condition of austerity for everyone else.

Supposedly austerity is over but did the poor and middle class ever get their benefits restored? Did the British go back to free college with no tuition? Did retires get their payments restored? It seems the crash was an excuse to take from the masses and give to the capitalist kings who caused the crash......what a scam. Time to give the rich who run the banks into the ground some austerity.

[sandensea]

2. Well said.

As you know, they've decided they'd like to return the world to 19th century conditions.

They no longer need well-functioning economies to make their money - plus the thought of living like gods among ants is quite gratifying to the ego.

That said, I'm looking forward to seeing the power struggle unfold between Cheeto's depraved choice (some Faux News talking head, probably - or maybe Ivanka!) and the ones the Europeans and Chinese put forward (which are likely to be only a little more reasonable).

For now, they have David Lipton - a real economist (unlike Lagarde) and former Clinton-era official.

You can bet Trump doesn't like him.