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Tumbling stock markets are worrisome, but the growth of negative interest rates bodes badly for markets, companies and individuals.

And one famous commentator maintains that the world is at the tipping point of another Great Recession, without tools to pull the global economy back.

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Negative interest rates are a sign of economic malaise, a desperate move by central banks to stimulate moribund economies. But they are beneficial for borrowers. Here’s how it works: at minus one per cent interest rate, a bank lends $100 and pays $1 to the borrower who would then have $101 after one year.

Negative rates hurt the banking system and don’t grow an economy but shrink it. Unfortunately, the practice is spreading across Asia and Europe. Their economies slow, and the amount of debt (loans, bonds) worldwide with “negative interest rates” is an estimated US$16 trillion, or nearly the size of the U.S. economy.