Negative Interest Rates
If there is a negative real interest rate, it means that inflation is more than the interest. Suppose if the Federal funds rate is 2% and the inflation rate is 10%, then it means that the borrower would gain 7.27% of every dollar borrowed.
This may lead to malinvestment and business cycles, as the borrower experiences a net profit by repaying principal with inflated (devalued) dollars.
Read more about this topic: Inflation Tax
Famous quotes containing the words negative, interest and/or rates:
“In a country where misery and want were the foundation of the social structure, famine was periodic, death from starvation common, disease pervasive, thievery normal, and graft and corruption taken for granted, the elimination of these conditions in Communist China is so striking that negative aspects of the new rule fade in relative importance.”
—Barbara Tuchman (1912–1989)
“A mob cannot be a permanency: everybody’s interest requires that it should not exist, and only justice satisfies all.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In the U.S. for instance, the value of a homemaker’s productive work has been imputed mostly when she was maimed or killed and insurance companies and/or the courts had to calculate the amount to pay her family in damages. Even at that, the rates were mostly pink collar and the big number was attributed to the husband’s pain and suffering.”
—Gloria Steinem (20th century)