European Central Bank President Mario Draghi disappointed
investors hoping for more central bank action to mitigate the
effects of the sovereign debt crisis on Italy and Spain.
Basically, he failed to announce any definitive measures at a
press conference this morning.  Journalists and analysts had
interpreted his promises last week to "do whatever it takes to
preserve the euro" as a sign that he was about to take non-
standard measures that would relieve mounting pressure on
soaring borrowing costs in countries like Spain and Italy.
While Draghi did say that plans were in the works that would
allow the ECB to launch such a program, his criteria for doing
so were steep.  His demands were two-fold:    • EU leaders need
to resolve concerns that the official sector has become senior
to private holders of sovereign debt. Greece's official sector
creditors (the ECB, European countries, and the IMF) refused to
take haircuts on their sovereign debt holdings when the
country's debts were restructured, essentially fo