The net effect of negative interest rates is to transfer wealth from savers to debtors. This would reduce the amount of total debt that's crushing the economy,

The net effect of negative interest rates is to transfer wealth from savers to debtors. This would reduce the amount of total debt that's crushing the economy, theoretically leading to growth. But would do so by confiscating wealth from savers either indirectly through inflation, or directly through depositor fees combined with capital controls. Effectively it will reward all those who have taken on too much debt and punish all those who have been prudent and saved. A very perverse incentive indeed. In a negative interest rate environment inflation is not going to be a very low positive number. It is going to be much higher. That's half the aim. To inflate away the debt and pay it off with cheaper money. Instead of banks needing to pay the central bank to borrow money, the central bank is going to pay them to take it. And they have the power to coin. Inflation is going to be dramatically higher. In my opinion, what should be done now is to let the market crash. The long term cause of the crisis has been the constant effort to stop the business cycle from occurring. Instead of having lots of little, regular, mini 'crashes' that would reallocate capital to solid businesses and erase bad debt, we have been propping up and preventing (to the best of the central banks ability) any markets' natural attempts to rebalance. So we've had this enormous, multi-decade boom. 2008 was a chance to correct, and that was not allowed to happen. So now the bust we have will be ferocious and terrible, far worse than 2008 would have been. But there is nothing we can do. We should have taken our economic medicine years ago, and prevented these insane bankers from doing this for their own personal gain. Central banks were established to 1) ensure a stable currency and 2) to be a lender of last resort. Since when did propping up the stock market become part of their purview? Or ensuring asset prices continue to rise? If we don't take the medicine now with an economic down turn, then the problem will just grow bigger, and the next time it will be far, far worse. Just as now it is far worse than 2008. We are effectively screwing our children's prospects for our own greedy self interest. You can only kick the can down the road for so long. With each kick it becomes heavier. Its now a boulder. Eventually we'll break our metaphorical foot on it, trying to kick it.