Europe

During a leisurely stroll around Germany, one may encounter many strange sights but nothing would stranger than the following ad (courtesy of Peter Barkow) which promises negative 1% interest rates for consumer loans up to 24 months.

Here is the quick and dirty: take out a loan and pay 1% less.

For the fine print we go to Santander Consumer Bank AG, which has this to which has this to say about this self-amortizing (if only in the beginning) loan.

 

-1.0% FINANCING

 

Despite proclamations from Europe's leaders that Greece was is fixed thanks to its latest round of bailouts and austerity, leaving aside The IMF's hatchet job, and growth is set to return any quarter now; unemployment remains mid-20%, capital controls continue to be in place (ATM caps), and the growing refugee 'problem' leaves social unrest rearing its ugly head once again.

In late January, we asked "who will offer the first negative rate mortgage?"

Who will offer the first negative rate mortgage

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 30, 2015

We didn't have to wait long before Denmark's Nordea Credit unleashed this idiocy. And now two banks in Belgium have followed suit, paying instead of charging interest on mortgages to a handful of customers.

Ever since explosions ripped through the Brussels airport on the morning of March 22, which together with a separate bomb attack at the Maelbeek metro station killed 32 and wounded dozens, in a terrorist attack which took the lives of two of the perpetrators Brahim El Bakraoui, 30, and his brother Khalid, 27, shown in the left and center on the airport photo below...

... local authorities had been on the hunt for the third bomber, the one also known as "the man in the hat."

As of moments ago, he has been officially found.

Excerpted from Doug Noland's Credit Bubble Bulletin blog,

Bubble Economy or Not?