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IPFS News Link • Economy - International

The Social And Economic Side Effects Of Negative Interest Rates

• https://www.zerohedge.com, by Pascal Hügli

 Banks are pushing impact and sustainable investing like crazy, companies are subordinating their production sites and supply chains to the noble goal of sustainability, and more and more parts of our society are discovering ecologism as the most meaningful political religion of our time.

At the same time - and this reveals the extent of the schizophrenia - our current economic structure is showing serious anomalies that are diametrically opposed to meaningful sustainability - first and foremost negative interest rates, which are increasingly eating into the structure of the economy and are turning the world upside down.

In a world of negative interest rates, the arrow of time runs backward. With negative interest rates, the present is more valuable than the future, the now seems more desirable than the tomorrow. The attraction of providing for the future is dwindling and with it the very care for the future. However, once the future is neglected, the very present degenerates into stagnation, throwing you back ever more.

Counterproductive Economic Activity

As a concrete consequence, negative interest rates promote rampant consumerism. Many people's social propensity to consume tends to be exaggerated. Consumption is becoming a lifestyle. Not only is consumption happening more frequently, but also in greater quantities, not least because it is becoming less and less worthwhile to refrain from consumption, i.e. saving in the true sense of the word. People's time preferences are completely distorted and hardly correspond to market interest rates.