The introduction of a new species can have a profound effect on the existing natural order. And that's not only in the realm of the sciences, as the Dutch and German finance ministries can attest. Just days after the ECB announced its new QE programme, and more than a month before it buys a single bond, the Netherlands and Germany found themselves at the centre of an unexpected - but in retrospect entirely predictable -situation that demonstrated some of the distortions the programme will cause.
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