To: TobagoJack who wrote (54245 ) 8/28/2009 8:13:26 PM From: Maurice Winn 4 Recommendations Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 220025 Negative interest rates are rational as long as the negative interest rate is a rational number. People pay to have their gold cared for in a vault and it's quite reasonable to expect to pay for pixel protection in monetary cyberspace with ready availability for clicking transfer to other realms. It is not a common thing to have happened so a moment's silence is a good idea. You did electrical engineering, so you know about imaginary numbers. In financial relativity theory, not only are rational numbers reasonable, whether positive or negative, but imaginary numbers are rational too, though irrational exuberance in monetary mania could see relativistic effects and event horizon gravitational distortions tear asunder monetary norms, leaving the average garden variety Newtonian mechanics piggy bank holder confused, bewildered, hungry, and angry, unable to buy even an UnHappy Meal let alone a Happy Meal. As somebody wrote somewhere, sometime, deflation of what we have and inflation of what we need. These are indeed interesting times. When, 55 years ago, I was learning about work, savings, interest, [and soon enough, inflation, confiscation, redistribution,] such a situation was unthinkable. In those early days, silver coins were fun to find in Xmas pudding and 3d and the few 6d could buy actual things [with lollies 6 a penny, a doughnut 3d and a whole pie only 6d]. The impressive bank notes [not found in Xmas pud] promised to pay the bearer sums of 10 shillings, a pound, five pounds, 10 pounds and even 20 pounds. A 50 pound note was not seen in normal human hands. 50 pounds turned into $100 and when I first got $100 notes in the late 1970s, I had to sign for them at the bank [they were fun to have and one could do serious shopping with them]. Now $100 notes are still treated as rare [not many people use them] but one tank of petrol in my Camry takes over $100. Supermarkets don't laugh at them yet, but one of them is not enough to feed a family of 6 for a week. Silver was long ago superseded by shiny metal which kind of looked like silver and "gold" coins [$1 and $2] are a pale imitation of the real thing. $1 was 10 shillings and was an actual bank note worth 3 hours of adult male work. Now $1 is heading for the smallest currency unit [with a shilling, now 10c having dwindled to the equivalent of 1c]. Much of the shrinkage happened during gold standard times. Now, shrinkage can accelerate, unimpeded by anything much at all. Mqurice