The European Central Bank is arguably the second most powerful central bank on the planet after the Fed. As such, its impact on the world economy should be substantial. However, the ECB has often struggled to reach its objectives. These failures have pushed it to adopt some unorthodox monetary policies whose effects in the long run are yet to be seen. Here, I look at some interesting data, which suggests that the ECB possibly never had the economy under its control and was just a passenger all along. Targeting Inflation The main objective of the ECB monetary policy is to keep a stable rate of inflation of around 2%. Looking at the historical CPI in the Eurozone, the ECB arguably failed in this objective in the past, with inflation closer to 1% and on a relatively stable downtrend. A more interesting way of looking at inflation and monetary policy is to analyse the implied inflation of inflation-linked treasury bonds and see how this changed when policy rates were altered....