Pitch Engine
The Times Real Estate

.

'Guaranteed to lose money': welcome to the bizarro world of negative interest rates

  • Written by John Hawkins, Assistant professor, University of Canberra
'Guaranteed to lose money': welcome to the bizarro world of negative interest ratesIn DC Comics' world of opposites, a bizarro bond is "guaranteed to lose money". Today a bizarro bond is not just a fantasy.www.shutterstock.com

In 1960 DC Comics introduced the “Bizarro” planet of “Htrae”. Created with a duplicating ray, the planet’s inhabitants are all imperfect versions of Superman and Lois Lane,...

Read more: 'Guaranteed to lose money': welcome to the bizarro world of negative interest rates

More Articles ...

  1. Deeming rates explained. What is deeming, how does it cut pensions, and why do we have it?
  2. The new Mabo? $190 million stolen wages settlement is unprecedented, but still limited
  3. Super shock: more compulsory super would make Middle Australia poorer, not richer
  4. The Murray-Darling Basin scandal: economists have seen it coming for decades
  5. All the hype around Libra is a red herring. Facebook's main game is Calibra
  6. What we missed while we looked away -- the growth of long‐term unemployment
  7. NZ's plan for deposit insurance falls well short of protecting people's savings
  8. Vital Signs: Trump's nominations for the US Federal Reserve are an odd lot, and an even bet
  9. Bonuses for clicks: the Herald Sun model can't be the future of journalism
  10. Early days, but we've found a way to lift the IQ and resilience of Australia's most vulnerable children
  11. Getting out of liquor and pokies will cost Woolworths, but deliver lasting benefits
  12. To be a rising star in the space economy, Australia should also look to the East
  13. Ultra-low unemployment is in our grasp. How Philip Lowe became the governor who lifted our ambition
  14. Back-to-back Reserve Bank cuts take interest rates to new low of 1%
  15. Morrison 'very confident' of winning support for tax passage, as he looks to crossbench
  16. Stages 1 and 2 of the tax cuts should pass. But Stage 3 would return us to the 1950s
  17. Buckle up. 2019-20 survey finds the economy weak and heading down, and that's ahead of surprises
  18. Australian household wealth has taken its biggest dive since the GFC, but things are looking up
  19. How English-speaking countries upended the trade-off between babies and jobs without even trying
  20. Facebook's Libra plan: talk of the demise of central banks is greatly exaggerated
  21. Morrison wants to unleash economy's 'animal spirits' and foreshadows new look at industrial relations
  22. Need to find a good restaurant? Economics serves up some golden rules
  23. How a humble Perth boathouse became Australia's most unlikely tourist attraction
  24. Vital Signs: Once were Kiwis. Here's the hidden history of Australia's own well-being framework
  25. Myth busted. Boosting super would cost the budget more than it saved on age pensions
  26. 50 years after Australia's historic 'equal pay' decision, the legacy of 'women's work' remains
  27. Why the Australasian Health Star Rating needs major changes to make it work
  28. Below zero is ‘reverse’. How the Reserve Bank would make quantitative easing work
  29. Inducing consumer paralysis: how retailers bury customers in an avalanche of choice
  30. Vital Signs: the RBA's marching orders are no longer realistic. They'll have to change
  31. Mending hearts: how a ‘repair economy’ creates a kinder, more caring community
  32. More people are retiring with high mortgage debts. The implications are huge
  33. Our economic model looks broken, but trying to fix it could be a disaster
  34. Vital Signs. If we fall into a recession (and we might) we'll have ourselves to blame
  35. Expect weak economic growth for quite some time. What Wednesday's national accounts tell us
  36. The Reserve Bank will cut rates again and again, until we lift spending and push up prices
  37. What's the difference between credit and debt? How Afterpay and other 'BNPL' providers skirt consumer laws
  38. The search for an alternative to GDP to measure a nation's progress – the New Zealand experience
  39. Explaining Adani: why would a billionaire persist with a mine that will probably lose money?
  40. As privacy is lost a fingerprint at a time, a biometric rebel asserts our rights
  41. Vital Signs: APRA is going to make it easier to borrow. It could be another one of its bad calls
  42. If the Adani mine gets built, it will be thanks to politicians, on two continents
  43. The behavioural economics of discounting, and why Kogan would profit from discount deception
  44. Why regional universities are at risk of going under
  45. It's time we moved the goalposts on Indigenous policies, so they reflect Indigenous values
  46. Uber drivers' experience highlights the dead-end job prospects facing more Australian workers
  47. If you think less immigration will solve Australia's problems, you're wrong; but neither will more
  48. Where to now for unions and 'change the rules'?
  49. Sex trafficking's tragic paradox: when victims become perpetrators
  50. Cutting interest rates is just the start. It's about to become much, much easier to borrow