🧀 [Analysis] Swiss economist criticizes monetary policy, sees cryptocurrencies as a possible solution

Kurt Schiltknecht, former chief economist of the Swiss National Bank, attacked current monetary policy and negative interest rate schemes as dangerous to European economies. Negative interest rates are becoming aggresivley popular tools for central bankers who are failing to address the fundementals of the economy at the peril of economic growth. Negative interest rates amount to taxation on fiat currency which could lead to markets needing a different medium of exchange, possibly cryptocurrencies. As negative interest rates destroy savings and pensions, Schiltknecht looks to F.A. Hayek who argued for currency competition to keep central bankers earnest. If central bankers keep pushing liquidity, while ignoring the general framework's defects, new monetary systems might have to be constructed.