Continuing saga of the European 'recovery'

Today, the Wall Street Journal reports that the European Central Bank, after announcing the largest quantitative easing program in its history, has problems purchasing the annual $60 billion of public assets it needs to fulfill the terms of the program (see http://on.wsj.com/1A66n2Z). 

German bonds, which will form the largest share of total purchases (the QE program requires the ECB to purchase assets by share of European GDP) are hard to come by precisely because they are valuable and no one will part with them on the resale market. There is not enough on the primary market because Germany, being prudent and economically sound, does not need to raise additional money to run an already efficient public sector. 

We are left with an ironic situation that only a government (in this case a meta-government) can invent.  First, countries that don't need the money are the ones being pressured to take it while those that need the money are too small or risky to be offered enough.  Sounds familiar? Second, quantitative easing is designed to re-inflate an economy on a deflationary spiral.  But unlike the U.S., the EU is not a country. Economic stability is vastly different between countries in the EU.  Hence, the countries mostly likely to heighten consumption from QE, Greece and Spain, are those that created the meltdown through runaway consumption, while those countries most likely to benefit from more consumption (Germany) are unlikely to do so. In part, the German economy is near full employment, so unmet needs are relatively small.  As well, the German cultural ethos is biased toward constrained consumption and savings.  Hence, the net effect of QE on the strong economies is to swell household and national savings, while that on the weak economies is more risky household and national balance sheets.  

Historically, the only way countries have been able to massively inflate spending in a hurry has been a time of war.  That's just about as good a case as any for the EU and NATO to escalate its involvement in the Middle East and the Ukraine.