“Jens Weidmann said that efforts by central banks to pump money into the economy reminded him of the scene in Faust, when the devil Mephistopheles, ‘disguised as a fool’, convinces an emperor to issue large amounts of paper money. In Goethe’s classic, the money printing solves the kingdom’s financial problems but the tale ends badly with rampant inflation.  Without specifically mentioning Mario Draghi’s bond-buying programme, he said: ‘If a central bank can potentially create unlimited money from nothing, how can it ensure that money is sufficiently scarce to retain its value?'”