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In a remarkable TV interview, Otmar Issing, the former Chief Economist of the European Central Bank and a former member of its Board, dismisses negative interest rates as a solution to what ails Europe. According to Issing,

... low investment is certainly not due to too high interest rates. It's due to regulation, political uncertainty, global uncertainty, etc. I don't expect that negative interest rates are really a solution to present problems. The reduction of interest rates, if it could be done, deeper into negative territory would not change anything but it has tremendous negative consequences for the financial system.

Issing also emphatically rejects the hysterical deflationphobia of most central bankers and macroeconomists and points out the benefits of deflation: