How Sweden's negative interest rates experiment has turned economics on its head

... can policymakers keep at this forever? Even if turns out that the lower bound was not negative, economists still believe that one exists. Attempts to estimate the unknown vary, but the fees charged by credit companies give some indication as to how strongly we prefer to use cash. These can be as low as minus 3pc according to Barclays, indicating that central bankers have much more room to slash rates. Pension funds might be among the first to abandon banks if things get too painful, because of what in effect can look like a tax on holding money.

They have only been able to do this because they've killed -- for now, at least -- the natural stampede into gold and other hard assets that negative interest rates naturally causes. When they lose control of the gold-suppression racket, things could get very interesting very quickly...