Euro zone crisis fix? There's an app for that

Somebody at the European Central Bank must have a warped sense of humour. Amid desperate calls for the ECB to step in and do more to help alleviate the euro zone crisis, social media wonks at the bank turned to Twitter to trumpet the arrival of an important new monetary policy game for the iPhone and iPad.

Players of '€conomia' must strive to keep inflation stable at two percent by using interest rates to control economic growth.

"Match your skills against your friends and enter the €conomia Hall of Fame," says the excitable App Store blurb. "'Cut fast!' 'No! Slowly does it.' Will you be a hawk or a dove? With the right balance, you could be the next 'Central Banker of the Year' … or you could even win the 'Euro area Gold Cup'."

The ECB has also developed a separate PC game - Inflation Island - in which participants can view the effects of rampant inflation on an economy.

We're assuming that the accompanying video explaining the educational ambitions of the project - featuring a smooth and unruffled (did someone say 'smug'?) cameo by retiring ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet - was recorded in happier times.

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Comments: (4)

A Finextra member 17 November, 2011, 18:18

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This actually isn’t funny considering the mess the sovereign nations of Europe are in.

Really the ECB has lost the plot and there is a serious lack of priorities in that bank.

Europe is falling apart, several sovereign nations are moving to a point where they are unable to turn over their debt or fund it, banks across the planet have massive write downs on issuer risk and are in effect undercapitalised, one of those banks (Dexia) has failed only a couple of weeks ago, two countries have suspended their governments and ousted their prime minister’s and pretty much everything except Germany is up for a downgrade.

So what does the supposed financial guardian plan to do - write software games for mobile phones.

Really this is economically obscene and partly perverse given the nature of the mobile phone games.

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Gary Wright 17 November, 2011, 23:04

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Totally agree that this is an awfull story.I hope it is a joke but i find it very unfunny. If this was football someone would get a red card and suspended

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A Finextra member 18 November, 2011, 04:20

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My my, what short memories you all have. Lets not starting criticising the ECB for the economic mess Europe is in. The root cause of the GFC was the unregulated greed of banks in North America copied by the idiots managing banks in Europe. The Eurozone political experiment may have backfired badly and impacted those economies which had been living beyond their means for decades but please - don't blame that on a few faceless bureaucrats in Frankfurt. Anyway, its nice to see the Germans have a sense of humour after all.

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A Finextra member 18 November, 2011, 12:56

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Barking up the wrong tree ...

Sure, the current crisis affecting the Euro zone is pretty critical, and there is little reason to joke about it.

But the European Central Bank is certainly not the main culprit to blame for that crisis, rather they are doing their best - within the limitations given by the surrouding political and economical environment - to keep things under control. Blame should be given to others who gamble with the economies of entire nations to satisfy their own greed.

Nor are the ECB people joking about the current situation. They did not create those games for fun, rather those were meant as educational tools. Maybe the current crisis would be less severe, if more people in the right positions had absorbed some of the thoughts conveyed via those games.