German star economist Michael Klein from Sciencefiles.org explains ECB German bonds purchases. Stupidity Prime

It is weekend. Time for some fun. This time Stupidity Supreme.

We switch live to Sciencefiles.org with chief hack Michael Klein. He is (was?) a German star economist, turned court journalist, turned emigrant, turned social blogger on the aforementioned website.

There we learn to our horror that Germany is one third owned by the ECB.

Actually, if you scroll down a little it is a whopping 38%. IOW, just 13% more and the ECB would be majority owner of Germany and could perhaps ..., well, sell it to France??? In any case, the ECB is all fishy according to this German top economist because

Nun ist die Europäische Zentralbank zwar eine Bank, hat aber keine eigenen Einnahmen.

Although the European Central Bank is a bank, it does not have its own revenue.

So forget interest and seigniorage, or revenue from The European refinancing dilemma, and let the wisdom of economist, turned-court journalist set in. It would not be Michael Klein if it did not get better.

Remember, the ECB has no revenue yet buys German bonds. That the ECB is the sole issuer of a sovereign currency and can and does keystroke money into existence does not occur to Michael. So how do the ECB wizards do that? Here comes Michael Klein's explanation:

Bundesanleihen aus dem Zeitraum 2015 bis 2018 sind je nach Laufzeit mit 0,25% bzw. 1,25% verzinst, d.h. die Bundesregierung überweist der EZB Kapital. Die EZB kauft mit diesem Kapital deutsche Staatsanleihen und zwackt sich die Zinsen ab, was bei 518.558.000.000 Euro und einer durchschnittlichen Verzinsung von 0,5% per Annum immerhin einen Jahreszins von 2.628.800.000 Euro ergibt. Die Bundesregierung kauft nicht nur die eigenen Schuldverschreibungen mit dem eigenen Geld über den Umweg EZB, sie verzinst das eigene Geld auch noch.

Federal bonds from the period 2015 to 2018 bear interest of 0.25% and 1.25%, respectively, depending on maturity, i. the Federal Government transfers capital to the ECB. With this capital, the ECB buys German government bonds and tempers its interest rates, which results in an annual interest of 2,628,800,000 euros at 518,558,000,000 euros and an average interest rate of 0.5% per annum. The federal government not only buys its own bonds with its own money via the ECB by-pass, it also pays interest on its own money.

In case you point out the nonsense in their comments section, no luck it will get published.