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More than 5,000 readers have already pitched in to keep free access to The Journal.
For the price of one cup of coffee each week you can help keep paywalls away.
EVERY WEEKEND, TheJournal.ie asks its readers to put their feet up and take a look back at all the goings-on from the world of business.
Once again it’s time to delve deep inside The Briefcase for all the important – and sometimes less-important – financial news that has come out this working week:
When I get that feeling, I need quantitative easing
Its imminent arrival was one of the worst-kept secrets in the history of economic policy, but this week “Super” Mario Draghi and his cohorts at the European Central Bank officially pulled the trigger on so-called quantitative easing (or QE for short).
And Draghi didn’t disappoint those calling for him to pull out a big bazooka to try and shake the eurozone out of its general malaise.
The programme – which basically means the ECB will create new money to lend to eurozone governments and banks – came in at a bigger-than-expected €1.1 trillion.
While some of the money will come from existing stimulus schemes, the bulk of that €1,100,000,000,000 will simply be spirited into existence (it looks like more when you include all those zeros).
The announcement quickly had one of the expected effects – it sent the euro reeling against the dollar, pound and other currencies.
Good news for a lot of Irish exporters no doubt, but that holiday or online shopping session just got a bit more painful.
As we noted in this little explanation on the ins and outs of QE, glamour model-turned businesswoman Katie Price has previously used Twitter to offer a few thoughts on QE and several other macroeconomic policy areas – so we were keen to see what she would have to say after the big announcement on Thursday.
We couldn’t agree more.
There’s a lot to love about NFL TV coverage. Even if you’re not sure why there’s a bunch of 150kg men dressed like they’re in the bomb squad running straight into each other.
And this four-minute video of bad lip reading, courtesy of our friends at The42.ie, is a good reason to love it roughly 100 times more.
“All I know is this is the bad guy and this is the good one.” Oh, mercy.
Originally published 24/01/2015
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