These quotes crack me up:
"nominal rates of -4per cent might be closer to what is required to rescue the economy from another deflationary spiral"
"By permanently removing cash from a system... policymakers are robbed of the excuse that zero is the lowest that nominal rates can go as a deflation-fighting tool."
“At the heart of the problem of achieving negative nominal interest rates is the idea that physical currency is an anonymous bearer bond with a nominal interest rate of zero.”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25658873-5017997,00.html
LOL!!
Please! Borrow my money! I pay you! I pay you!
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
I wanna borrow a billion dollars and get paid 4 percent interest to do it. I want this done now.
Call me a suspicious old geezer but the only true reason I see behind this is to try and fight fiscal evasion by controlling every single transaction. Japan, being a "cash" economy and Japanese people being long acquainted with "rapacious" governments are a good proving ground for this idea. Why I know that? Because around here it's exactly the same thing and there isn't a single day when some high brass from fiscal police (imagine the IRS in gray uniforms and armed with submachine guns you cannot own) moans about needing "more resources" to stomp fiscal evasion which deprives the State of much needed resources. been there, seen that.