Like common brigands, central banks have been acting outside the law – their only real excuse being the supposedly higher purpose of economic necessity, a sort of Robin Hood-type operation where the ends justify the means, only with a slight flaw; by driving up the value of financial assets and real estate, QE further skews the distribution of wealth towards those with already large holdings of it. It robs from the poor and gives to the rich. Not that there is any possibility of the courts judging QE in all its various forms to be against the law, the writers concede. In Europe, the European Court of Justice has admittedly been asked to rule on ECB bond buying, but will almost certainly deem it to be a necessary price for holding the eurozone together. Never mind the law, the single currency comes first.