Like Janet Yellen, also the president of the ECB, Mario Draghi, did not go too far on rates and Quantitative easing but took the opportunity of the annual Central Bankers Symposium in Jackson Hole to issue more than one warning to the shaky presidency
Trump and his dangerous temptations.
Draghi immediately went to the heart of the problems and, albeit with the sobriety and elegance of his classic speech, launched a double attack on protectionism and financial deregulation.
A return to protectionism, repeatedly overshadowed by Donald Trump, "would constitute - said Draghi - a serious risk for the growth of the global economy" at the very moment in which the forecasts of the International Monetary Fund have become more encouraging and at the very moment in which the recovery is strengthening.
"The opening of the markets - insisted the president of the ECB - is the key to making the economy more dynamic and raising productivity, improving the well-being of the population".
Then Draghi did not miss the opportunity, as Yellen had previously done, to warn Trump against the temptation to dust off the financial deregulation that the markets like so much but which was one of the causes of the biggest financial crisis since the war. His explicit invitation to the authorities was to "not re-access the incentives that triggered the crisis".
Predictably, both Draghi and Yellen were very tight-lipped on monetary policy developments but they did not disappoint and their words on protectionism and financial deregulation echoed far beyond Jackson Hole.
