As European Central Bank Eases Emergency Measures, Risks May Lurk<br />Consumers, businesses and politicians have gotten accustomed to — some would say spoiled by — low interest rates.<br />The central bank’s benchmark interest rate is zero, and investors are so desperate for safe places to put their money<br />that corporations like Daimler, the German automotive giant, have been able to issue bonds that pay no interest.<br />No one knows for sure what unpleasant surprises may lurk when it begins the process of so-called tapering — taking away the easy money<br />that made it possible for banks to lend and governments to borrow even after investors had largely deserted them during the worst of the downturn.<br />25, 2017<br />FRANKFURT — The European Central Bank appeared ready on Thursday to begin dismantling a decade’s worth of emergency measures<br />that helped keep the eurozone from disintegrating during the financial crisis.<br />Since early 2015, the bank has used newly created money to buy bonds<br />and other assets worth more than 2 trillion euros, or about $2.35 trillion — a sum roughly equal to the annual economic output of India.<br />The central bank has said it will not begin raising rates until it has stopped buying bonds,<br />and only if the eurozone inflation rate is on track to hit the official target of 2 percent.<br />would like to announce tapering as noiselessly as possible," analysts at Dutch bank ING said in a note to clients.
