Our primary objective is price stability, we do not have the wide mandate which for example the Federal Reserve has. Second, the structure of the financial market in Europe is very different. In the US, for example, a large share of financial intermediation takes place through capital markets. This provides a broad and deep pool of assets to purchase.
(5)  The current turmoil  Let me turn to the recent financial crisis and pose the question of whether there was evidence of excesses in financial markets in the years before the crisis erupted in August 2007. In the years before the crisis, low and stable consumer price inflation was accompanied by asset price inflation that reflected underlying imbalances.