IT IS safe to say that we have passed the point at which criticisms of the European Central Bank must be prefaced with the caveat that, yes, the ECB did prevent a nasty break-up of the single currency when its head, Mario Draghi, promised to do "whatever it takes" to keep the euro zone together. At this point, that decision is looking less like heroism than sadism, a bit like saving a trauma patient's life only to subsequently starve him to death. ECB policy can at this point be described as both cruel and unusual.

The latest evidence is damning. The euro-zone unemployment rate hit a new high in January at 11.9%. Unemployment rates touched dizzying new levels around the periphery; Greece, with unemployment at 27% as of November, is in the lead. Just as worrying are rate rises in much of the core. French unemployment continued to inch up and now stands at 10.6%. But unemployment has also increased by roughly a percentage point over the past year in both the Netherlands and Austria. The ranks of those spared by rising joblessness continue to shrink and retreat northwards.

One might normally explain these figures away as the actions of a central bank dangerously obsessed with inflation. And indeed, the ECB seemed proud of the fact that year-on-year inflation dropped to 2.0% in January. But this is an unsatisfactory story. As the chart below shows, prices have been falling sharply of late. For the euro zone to maintain an inflation rate near 2% over the coming year would eventually require a return to inflation well above the 2% target. (A flash estimate of year-on-year inflation as of February put the rate down to 1.8%.) If ECB policy is this naive, aiming to keep year-on-year inflation at 2% while entirely ignoring recent inflation trends, then it quite simply doesn't deserve to be entrusted with euro-area monetary policy.