IN some parts of Europe, negative interest rates are creating absurd situations. In France, some corporate bonds pay interest to the issuer because they were linked to a benchmark rate that has dropped below zero. In Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland, banks are turning depositors away with threats of negative interest rates.
If this goes on much longer, we'll be living in the world of "free money" imagined by the economic dreamer and adventurer Silvio Gesell in the 19th century.
Mr Gesell was born in Germany and made a modest fortune as an importer in Argentina. After he returned to Europe, he became finance minister of the short-lived Soviet Bavarian Republic in 1919, was arrested and charged with...
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