What's key is that Shakespeare wrote this line into Hamlet, but it was not spoken by Hamlet. Marcellus said it to Horatio after the ghost of Hamlet's father appeared and Hamlet exited stage left with his dear old floating dad. The iconic phrase called out political corruption, a subtlety that high school students must glean from their required reading. Or, if you prefer the obvious, it flags something that's gone awry.

Today, something really is negative in the State of Denmark. As per this CNBC headline: "Danish bank offers mortgages with negative 0.5% interest rates – here's why that's not necessarily a good thing." On Monday, August 5, Jyske Bank A/S, Denmark's third-largest bank, announced that big carrot on a 10-year mortgage. Banks offering negative mortgages are willing to take a smaller loss compared to lending at higher interest rates where they risk less creditworthy borrowers that may not be able to pay them back in the future.