It upends everything that you think you know. It makes absolute sense that the bank would pay me for the privilege of using my money and other people would pay the bank for the privilege of using their money (which is actually my money) and the bank, providing some guarantees, would get a cut. This is the finance system I have always known.
What blows me away is upending all of this for a system where I pay the bank for the privilege of keeping my money in a safe place, and the bank then pays someone to go out and use that money.
I realize that just because the overnight rate from a central bank goes negative, that doesn't mean that your mortgage goes negative, but that is the end point of that logic. And that's where it seems so squirrelly. Why wouldn't I then just borrow 100 billion dollars, keep it for a week in a warehouse, pray that it doesn't catch fire or get vandalized, then pay it back and live off the negative interest?
Like I say, it just kind of boggle my mind.
