Mario Draghi has acted. He has won the whole of the European Central Bank's ruling council round to the idea that action needed to be taken to prevent the eurozone becoming the new Japan. Whether he has yet done enough to stop disinflation becoming outright deflation is another matter.

In truth, the ECB did as much as could have been expected at this meeting. It cut interest takes, taking the historic step of making commercial banks pay for lodging money at the ECB. And it came up with its version of the Bank of England's funding for lending scheme (FLS) with a targeted scheme that will reward banks that bump up their lending to private firms. This excludes lending to the real estate market, which shows that the ECB has learned some lessons from the FLS, which was a lot more successful at boosting mortgage lending than at providing funds for small- and medium-sized companies.

Was this action justified? There is no question that it was. Even the hawks on the ECB council led by Germany's Jens Weidmann are uncomfortable with an inflation rate of 0.5% and annual growth in the money supply of 1%. Inflation and the money supply are the twin pillars of ECB policy: both are running well below target.

Will the action help? Yes, but the impact is unlikely to be that dramatic....