FYI: Currency got weird just before the U.S. Civil War. Banks issued their own designs, exchangeable for gold, and some used popular imagery to make customers want to keep their paper. The 1980s television series Ripley’s Believe It or Not! once featured a three-year note from the Central Bank of Troy, N.Y., with a portrait of Santa Claus and his reindeer.
If someone had told the Ripley’s folks that more than a quarter of government debt worldwide would carry negative yields one day, they might have struggled to believe it. Santa notes are one thing, but lenders paying borrowers? That’s a financial freak show. Yet, here we are. And with the world’s debt exceeding 320% of its economic output, growth looking weak, and central banks getting creative, there could be more and greater money-related oddities to come.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.barrons.com/articles/amazon-target-and-more-stock-picks-for-a-bizarre-market-51565398970?mod=past_editions
