I doubt that when Getty uttered this line more than half a century ago he ever imagined it would apply to countries, yet here we are.

Too many pundits believe Germany holds all the aces in the European power dynamic. After all, they are the creditor nation with all the wealth. They should be able to dictate the terms of the European Union and instill their fiscal and monetary dominance on the rest of the EU nations.

Yet we have long passed the point where Germany can walk away from this union. Let's forget the political implications of an EU collapse (which are considerable and provide a great degree of inertia for the EU remaining together), and instead focus on the fiscal implications.

Start with the obvious. The ECB is busy ramping up their balance sheet. At the start of 2015, they held 2 trillion euros in assets. Over the past three-and-a-half years, the ECB has more than doubled that. They now own more than 4.5 trillion of euros in assets.