Zero is not just a number. When people lose their jobs and their retirement can’t be paid out from zero interest, zero is not just a number. When rates are above 20% and people lose their homes, farms, businesses, whatever to others and then become their debt slaves laboring in what they once owned — usuarios rates are not just a number.

All your comparisons of one investment to another, inflation modifiers, etc., is talk best left for cocktail hour. As significant as inside-baseball trivia.When you talk about banks working with the elites to write down debt through negative interest rates, now you’re talking in real world economic forces (even if it sounds conspiratorial).

What really annoys me about this piece is the assumption that people are stupid. Sure, if I have gold and you’re going to store it I expect you’ll take some gold in payment (negative interest). But if I expect you to risk it on a business adventure, but I don’t trust you to give me my fair share, then interest is a way for us to agree on a fee in between where you’re cheating me and it’s still worth it for me to let you do so.

That said, everyone looks at interest differently, and buys or sells bonds for different reasons which cannot be ascertained by looking at surface data.

But zero is not just a number. You’re a very smart guy. It frustrates me to read your stuff when you treat the reader (me) like someone who can’t think for themselves. Interest rates are tied to the real economy. They are not just complex mathematical models one needs to understand, so they can reduce some equation to zero as if it’s just another number.

You have some good stuff in this piece. Cut out the sophomoric arguments and let it shine!