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Upside-Down World of Negative Rates Is Coming for U.S. Savers

  • Monetary policy now loosest since wake of the 2008 crisis
  • Europe’s vicious cycle of low yields, low growth may beckon
Photographer: Dominik Osswald/Bloomberg
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Mattresses full of money, getting paid to take out a mortgage, surging demand for safe-deposit boxes -- these are some of the ideas people have about what happens when interest rates turn negative.

Just a few months ago, such scenes -- at least in the U.S. -- seemed unthinkable. But with Treasury yields tumbling and the Federal Reserve abruptly slashing rates to near zero on Sunday, Americans may soon get a taste of them firsthand.