Fight in the Eurozone about negative interest rates

New EU Bank Head Christine Lagarde, pushing for lower interest rates and a weaker euro, said "We Should Be Happier To Have A Job Than To Have Savings," appealing to voters as producers, not consumers.

Lagarde's direct attempt at shaming Europe's fiscal conservatives was nothing short of shocking: normally ECB officials avoid naming individual countries in public statements, because their mandate is to act in the interests of the eurozone as a whole. But when Lagarde made her speech she had not yet officially taken over at the Frankfurt-based institution — she succeeds Mario Draghi on Friday.

We somehow doubt this "explanation" will fly with the German population, which sees itself as funding peripheral Europe's profligate ways for the past decade, even as it benefited from the weak euro to supercharge the German export machine.

Lower interest rates weaken the Euro because fewer people want to keep savings in euros at such low rates (they sell euros and, e.g., buy dollars to invest in the US), and more people want to borrow in euros (the carry trade), change euros to, e.g., dollars to invest in the US.  This weakens the euro relative to the dollar, which increases employment in the EU via an increase in export demand.  But EU consumers are hurt by higher import prices.

HT:  ZeroHedge.com