This is a continuation of the previous post.
Inflation had always been around, so the nominal zero that we saw was never really zero. Inflation of 3% meant that money depreciated value 3% every year, we just didn't see it so we think it's not there. When inflation is 3% and interest rate is 2%, effectively money in the bank is still being burnt. After the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), nominal interest rate became zero, but inflation was around 1% and hence real rate was already negative. But unfortunately our primitive human minds can only think in nominal terms, not real terms. Hence in the long history of financial markets, nominal interest rate (ie the one that we have been talking all this while, which is the one always quoted on TV and news) didn't need to go subzero since inflation was always positive.
But now that inflation is negative, ...
Inflation had always been around, so the nominal zero that we saw was never really zero. Inflation of 3% meant that money depreciated value 3% every year, we just didn't see it so we think it's not there. When inflation is 3% and interest rate is 2%, effectively money in the bank is still being burnt. After the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), nominal interest rate became zero, but inflation was around 1% and hence real rate was already negative. But unfortunately our primitive human minds can only think in nominal terms, not real terms. Hence in the long history of financial markets, nominal interest rate (ie the one that we have been talking all this while, which is the one always quoted on TV and news) didn't need to go subzero since inflation was always positive.
But now that inflation is negative, ...
