The ECB has lent 500 billion euro to the European banks at one per cent interest for three years. Pratically for free. It’s done that to get Europe to take off again. To allow the banks to reopen the taps and to finance the real economy for the companies that are closing down at the speed of light. As my youngest child, Ciro would say “it’s a proper barbatrucco {Barbapapa trick}”. Money from the ECB isn’t born under a cabbage plant, it’s guaranteed by the states of the EU. Basically it’s our money. The banks have to be saved. They have a liquidity crisis and they are not even lending money to each other. Furthermore, they have billions of uncollectable credits and various financial rubbish that sooner or later they’ll have to write off. 500 billion is a lifesaving anchor and in fact there’s been a queue of bankers to get the loan just like at the end of season sales. Banks however, act like banks. It’s in their nature to practise usury. Capital is nvested where the return is highest. Giving money to a company in difficulty or to a start up is a risk. Buying public bonds is a bit less risky. A whole State has to go bust. So it’s probable that the banks will buy the State bonds of the PIGS, the ones with the highest interest rates, from 6 or 7 % upwards. Guaranteed net earnings. It’s also a noble gesture. The loan agreed with the ECB would cover all the needs of Italy and Spain for the whole of 2012. Europe would be saved. However in this conjuring trick there’s something that doesn’t add up. So as to save us and to place the public debt, we have to pay really high rates of interest to the banks with money loaned by us through the ECB. The same banks, starting with the French and German ones, that have sold Italian and Spanish bonds with open hands in the year that’s gone by. And now that they’ll buy them back with interest rates that have been multiplied by five. Reason gets lost in this labyrinth. In this Giro di BOT {Roundabout of Italian Treasury Bonds} Why give interest to private banks that are buying our debt while we are lending them the money? Let’s buy our own debt, with the Treasury or the Bank of Italy, at least we’ll be paying the interest to the State. They will never give up (but is it in their interests?). Neither will we.