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Negative rates forever? Central bankers look for an exit

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By Leika Kihara, Howard Schneider and Megan Davies

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An intelligent person would have predicted this would be the inevitable result after Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard and then Reagan launched "supply side" economics.

Once consumers, who account for 60- 70% of the economy, are squeezed because the super rich are taking a larger share of the national income, then wages and growth approach stagnation, meaning governments need to spend more on public programs to keep things moving, and central banks need to, yes, lower rates drastically. And that's where we are today, folks,

Prosperity spreads from the middle, it doesn't trickle down from the top.

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In an ideal world, elected officials would pull more of the weight with fiscal programs and structural reforms that would improve growth and allow interest rates to rise.

My supposition is that, when things get bad enough, people will elect officials that have the guts to make big painful changes (structural reforms), because the trade-off picture will make that look more attractive than the status quo.

Muddle along sub-optimally until a bad crisis occurs; then don't let it go to waste by making the changes that have to be made. The elected officials who act accordingly are the ones whose names go down as great historical figures.

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Politicians fail to run their countries properly and wealth ends up in the hands of a few...

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