The title echoes Pynchon, who was quoting Pavlow:
there can still be a silent extinction beyond the zero
referring to pushing deconditioning beyond a zero point. In Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, the protagonist Slothrup is able to predict where German V2 rockets would hit London by having sex in locations where the bombs subsequently fell.
But Baker is talking about a world where interest rates are falling below zero.
A world of negative interest rates isn’t supposed to happen. In economics, zero is the floor. But Europe’s economic stagnation has proved so intractable that the region’s central banks are cutting rates deeper into negative territory to spur their economies. We look at the upside-down world of negative interest rates, in which banks impose a levy on customers to hold their money, instead of paying interest on deposits. And in other market news, China guided the yuan to its weakest level in more than four years as the country deals with currency outflows and a slowing economy. Global stocks, meanwhile, declined today, led by mining companies, as investors continued to digest a recent slump in commodities prices.
Money is a commodity that is falling in value, since banks – and other investors – don’t know where or how to invest it with low risk. So they are paying to minimize risk: insurance, in effect. So vast fortunes are sitting on the sidelines.
from Stowe Boyd http://stoweboyd.com/post/134867504122
