Karl W. Smith, Columnist

Being Paid to Borrow Money Isn’t So Bad

Or, how I learned to stop worrying and accept negative interest rates.

Now with negative-interest mortgages!

Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg
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A Danish bank is now offering mortgage bonds with a negative interest rate. So if you’re willing to buy a house on borrowed money, Danish banks will pay you for your trouble.

Reaction to this state of affairs — which, after all, is beneficial to borrowers, which almost all of us are at some point — has been fierce. Negative interest rates have been called idiotic, unnatural and a tax on virtue — and that’s by economists. For most other people, including many in finance and investment, they’re just bewildering.