— Real interest rates are negative.

Hear me out. Zero is an arbitrary number. Zero on a scale can be wherever we want it to be; for Celsius we decided it is where water freezes and zero for Kelvin is the lowest possible temperature. Both of those are relative to another thing. A zero interest rate is just relative to a point where one increases the number in their account with one that decreases a number in their account.

Investors don’t look at a nominal rate and think that’s the point where they loose money. If an investor has money sitting and is making less than inflation they have already lost money.

This is why we didn’t see change when the ECB and the BOJ went to nominal “negative” rates because –real interest rates are negative.