4 ms·

What percentage of world debt is on negative interest rates?

• pjc50 11y ago
  Very little at the moment. Remember this is only negative short term deposit rates at a few central banks. There's quite a bit at zero or near-zero rate though. More governments should take the opportunity to borrow money at zero rates and invest in socially useful things.
  • ThrustVectoring 11y ago
    Borrowing money is simply the government doing socially useful things now in exchange for giving up the ability to do so later. Sure, low interest rates give you better terms on this, but it's not obviously clear that this is the correct thing to do. Roads and bridges need maintenance, and in the future there will be more old people that we want to take care of.
    • trophycase 11y ago
      Except if you don't invest in infrastructure and useful social things, there's no future of note anyway. I don't really think the economy will do too well if nobody can make it to work.
      • ThrustVectoring 11y ago
        Right, there's obviously transportation and infrastructure projects that are positive-value. We should do those. What we shouldn't do is invest in transportation and infrastructure projects without evaluating whether or not they're positive-value. Even if we have unprecedented ability to cheaply invest in infrastructure, that doesn't mean that all projects are worth doing.