When the economy was in most danger, the ECB could have cut rates more quickly.
As with doctors, the ECB could find a lawyer to offer a different opinion without any difficulty.
To ease the fallout on Spain and others, the ECB could issue more three-year loans to banks, analysts say.
He believes the ECB could raise rates as many as three times over the course of 2011, to 1.75%.
Why even the asset book of the ECB could be bought into question.
Over the weekend the Austrian Chancellor, Werner Faymann, changed tack and said "the ECB could perform a more powerful role".
However, there are two ways that the ECB could allow such a lender of last resort to come into existence.
Governments would have to insure Greek bonds against default so that the ECB could continue to accept them as collateral.
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The ECB could let inflation run higher, especially in Germany, and could declare that it stands fully behind solvent sovereigns.
One concern is that by playing up the fight against recession, the ECB could appear to have lost sight of inflation.
The ECB could, if it wanted to, kill this problem stone dead.
But the ECB could be unwilling to take the hit and Germany in particular is opposed to giving any more financial aid to Greece.
It's news, even if it is completely unclear, right now, how the ECB could take a hit on its future bond holdings when it had previously suggested this was not legally possible.
With the worst hit countries in Europe in a depression and unemployment rising, the ECB could be forced to take more action, in addition to the current measures, to prevent the crisis worsening.
Tom Rogers from Ernst and Young said that "the setting up of committees to examine how the ECB could bring down borrowing costs, while remaining in the ECB remit, is probably the best that could be achieved".
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But, if countries like Italy start to lose market access altogether, then you could see how the ECB could end up playing "lender of last resort, one step removed", effectively funding private bank purchases of Italian bonds.
The ECB could try to engineer this by aiming for a, say 5% eurozone inflation rate for a few years or more and do that through either simple money printing or by monetising some of the periphery debt.
But the chief of the European Central Bank shocked analysts on Thursday by saying that inflation pressures have indeed become worrisome, and the ECB could raise interest rates across the 17-nation Eurozone as soon as its next meeting in April.
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Any change in the ECB language could also unsettle European markets and Wall Street.
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The ECB Governing Council could have shut down the ELA operation using its powers under Article 14 of the ECB statute.
Reform momentum could be stalled until well after the elections, which could upset the ECB and other Eurozone members.
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As such, Setrakian thinks a rally in the euro or other risk assets like stocks and commodities on the back of an ECB decision could unwind over the next few weeks.
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Beyond the possibility of ECB liquidity, the summit could also surprise by addressing necessary, long-term measures toward fiscal integration which are a precondition to give peripheral bond markets and growth a chance to stabilize.
If Greece leaves the Eurozone, the ECB rescue plan could offset market jitters about other countries following suit.
That judgment is too kind to the ECB, which could afford to have scruples about the medium term because other central banks were taking more care of the present.
If eurozone gross domestic product data on Thursday shows the economy contracted, that could spur the ECB to act, analysts said.
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You'd need something like turning the EFSF into a bank, which could borrow from the ECB to lend to governments (I wrote about this idea in September - see Central banks and the 'spirit of 2008' ).
How ironic it would be if Abenomics were to accomplish in the Eurozone that intense human suffering could not: moving the ECB to forcefully act.
Speaking after the European Central Bank's (ECB) half-point cut in interest rates on November 6th, Jean-Claude Trichet, the bank's chief, allowed that inflation could fall well below the ECB's target ceiling of 2% next year.
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