Eurozone Double Dip Discerned

The Wall Street Journal this morning in New York headlines a report "ECB WATCH: Threat Of Double Dip May Prompt Unexpected ECB Moves" from which comes this:

The economic outlook for the 16 countries in the euro zone is deteriorating, and growth in the region may come to a standstill in the fourth quarter.

Euro-zone private-sector output growth in September slowed beyond expectations to a seven-month low, preliminary results of a survey by data provider Markit showed Thursday.

Ireland, meanwhile, posted an unexpected decline in second-quarter gross domestic product. The country's GDP dropped 1.2% from the first quarter, dashing hopes that the economy had turned a corner.

Cast your minds back to the departure of ECB head Jean Claude Trichet at the press conference before his departure for a holiday, on which I posted on this blog "Smug and self-satisfied Trichet heads for St Malo" linked here, which included this paragraph: The silver tongued and similarly white-haired manipulator of markets, amongst whose many disgraceful battle honours can be numbered the Credit Lyonnaise collapse and the european Exchange Rate Mechanism fiasco, has neatly bluffed the markets, so that like all good eurocrats he can depart for his lengthy undeserved summer vacation, secure in the knowledge that the fog he has dispersed will remain mostly impenetrable until well after his return to Frankfurt. Well the Central Bankers have finally returned to work as the sun slips south across the equator and the fog, for a brief moment, before the winter chill forces a return, has dispersed and the true disaster area of the euro of which Trichet has for long been a prime architect, is clearly in its death throes. How could the ECB head have then gone on holiday, knowing what was in store for us all, after all, this blog got it spot on!