[brightball]

My understanding has always been interest rates. Interest rates on savings accounts are supposed to be slightly lower than interest rates on loans with the bank taking a profit in the middle.

Home loans used to be much higher, in the 10-15% range and you could get 6-7% on your savings account.

With home loans in the 2-3% range, those margins aren't feasible anymore.

But that's probably an old understanding. I'm sure there's a lot more financial wizardry to it now.

[spurgu]

I'm not an economist either but what you said makes sense. We instead nowadays have tons of various fees on our bank accounts so the return ends up being negative. And we're supposed to accept that this is fine and normal? Economy is booming? Give me a break.

This is why creative solutions like bitcoin, if not (necessarily) directly solving anything, do give pause for thought, and maybe shine some hope for a non-corrupt (immutable) system of money.

I need to read up on whether a deflationary currency/economy would really be an issue, or if it just wouldn't work with how things are currently set up.

Edit: And yes, it's a complex issue with no outright easy answers. Doesn't hurt to think about it though.

[nmlnn]

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-...