I hear this all the time about the ECB

In what amounts to a perfect followup to my post on the amnesiac economy, Paul De Grauwe takes the ECB to task for refusing to do what is necessary to save the euro, and taking refuge in a very narrow definition of its role.  Krugman Version 

At the core of the ECB are about a hundred people with a printing press. How does anyone expect a few people with a printing press to restore the European economy? I mean, an ecoomists wouold have to have a bizarre model of an agent for this to work

At the bottom of the conversation, the ECB is code word for German middle class. I guess the idea is to fake out the German middle class and put them on the hook.