As far as I understand, negative interest rates are a desperate attempt intended to try and incentivize banks to lend and consumers to borrow and spend, which in turn spurs the economy. With a negative interest rate, commercial banks have to pay to deposit their money with the central bank. They are probably unlikely to pass this cost through the average depositor because it would likely trigger massive withdrawals from a bank that charges customers to deposit their cash. This could turn into a bank run and ultimately make the bank insolvent. Instead, banks will likely want to lend instead of hold onto the cash. As weird as it is, debt is the only way to grow these economies. People need to borrow and spend and banks need to lend. It seems we are reaching a breaking point where there the world can't take on much more debt. When this happens, crashes happen and assets devalue. This kind of resets the economy. Through companies and people going bankrupt, their debts are wiped out and a few years later they can borrow again. This forced deleveraging. Negative interest rates just kick the crash further down the road. While it's impossible to know when the crash will come, it is pretty much assured that it will happen. Could be this year, could be 20 years down the road. Just depends on how long central banks can stall it. If negative interest rates hit the US, I'd say the time is near. Right now, the unemployment picture is the only reason the Fed has not dropped interest rates again. If unemployment starts to rise, start getting very worried.