In his highly anticipated press conference on Thursday, Mario Draghi, the European Central Bank president, delivered the news he was expected to deliver and a very misleading explanation of why it happened and what it means.

Under a new program called Outright Monetary Transactions, or OMT, formally approved by the ECB's governing council, the ECB is prepared to throw its weight behind future bailouts of Eurozone member countries by buying potentially unlimited amounts of their shorter-dated state bonds.

It was an important decision, but not for the reasons Draghi gave. Because OMT's real purpose is controversial, the program was approved under a pretense of being aimed at easing credit conditions in private credit markets.

OMT brings the ECB uncomfortably close to breaking the rule in its charter that forbids it from financing governments. The ECB will be indirectly lending to governments, by buying bonds from third parties who buy them

If you're hoping China will turn this global slowdown around with a big new stimulus, don't hold your breath. It could yet happen, but probably won't, and almost certainly not soon. China has good reasons to hold off from stimulus, even as large parts of its economy are clearly suffering from collapsing demand.

I was prompted to write this piece by the alarming recent drop in prices for steel, the second-most-important globally traded commodity after oil. Shanghai rebar futures -- the steel market's most-watched contract -- are at their lowest since they started trading in December 2009. Iron ore and coking coal prices are both at their lowest since 2009 and still falling. Chinese buyers are running out of space to store excess inventory, and some are defaulting on long-term purchase contracts.

For me, this is eerily reminiscent of 2008, when I was

After a year of small adjustments and big denials, Europe's leaders are finally getting their heads together and preparing the bail-out of Spain that almost everybody knew was coming.

The form of the bailout, as described by Mario Draghi, the European Central Bank president, will be different from those for Greece, Portugal and Ireland. This time, the club of eurozone governments' bailout funds, the EFSF and ESM, will buy part of Spain's issuance of sovereign bonds, while the ECB buys the same on the secondary market.

The bailout could accomplish one of its goals: to persuade markets that the eurozone is not about to splinter. If the Spain bailout is followed up with a deal to cut Greece more slack, that could quell talk of an imminent eurozone breakup -- at least among people who move markets, at least for a while.

But Spain's problems, and the eurozone's crucial

There's been a lot of talk lately about how likely it is that Greece will soon be forced to quit the Euro. If only the Greek crisis could end so simply.

A Greek exit from the euro would be an awful mess, but it would at least bring closure and a chance to move on. Greece would arguably have a better chance of recovering sooner. But best of all for the rest of us, Greece would no longer be a potential trigger for wider European or global crisis.

Well, no such luck. Greece will not leave the euro, and it's almost impossible to kick Greece out.

Instead of preparing for Greek exit, prepare instead for more of the same as Greek and other European leaders exchange threats, miss deadlines, suspend payments, spook markets, and seem to never get any closer to resolving anything.

That outlook stands regardless of who wins

As negotiations over Greece's debt restructuring and second bailout drag on, people are starting to doubt there's still time left to finish a deal and avoid default on a large bond payment due in March.

The slow pace of talks is indeed good reason to be nervous. Greek politicians swearing they won't accept more austerity as unions flex their muscles with demonstrative strikes are also good reasons to worry, some.

But here's the question that really matters. Is it possible the negotiations could fail completely? Could Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, call her lawyers home and tell Greece to fend for itself without further aid?

If that happens, there will be havoc. I would expect to see lines outside Greek banks the very next morning. Then would come an announcement that Greece was quitting the Euro and converting all Euro deposits in its banks to drachmas.

Europeans might think they're