After several submarine missions proved the Baltic Sea to be barren of vampire squid, Germany is ready to search for speculators in other arenas, namely the currency market:

Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told the Bundestag on March 16 that the country may have to consider ordering “intelligence agencies to set up surveillance of who is getting together with whom for which kinds of speculative processes, and where” to protect the euro.

“I find it sinister and silly, it is a complete overreaction,” said Philip Whyte of the Centre for European Reform, a pro-European Union research institute in London. “There is a certain school of thought in continental Europe that everything is always the fault of hedge funds.” Schaeuble’s comments reflected “a longstanding paranoia about the Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism.”

Finger-pointing at the hedgies seems to have been a bigger and longer-standing hobby over there than it is over here, even. Well, at the US and UK hedgies, of course. In 2005, their vice-chancellor was referring to hedge funds as faceless swarms of locusts who came to eat Kinder Eggs and devour companies, and they were all out of Kinder Eggs. Current chancellor Angela Merkel hasn’t given anywhere near as interesting a soundbite, but she’s partnered with Nicolas Sarkozy to try to limit any speculation on the creditworthiness of their governments, though we’re not sure which of them stuck that line item to eliminate international tariffs on imports of platform shoes in the proposal. In the wake of all that betting on Greece to board the failboat I know they have to look like they’re doing something but really, how is this going to work? Are they going to actually cross the pond and plant German spies at Cipriani listening in on every guy in a suit who happens to mention the euro? If I buy puts on $FXE will I denied entrance to Oktoberfest?