The risks on your wealth are increasing, so are regulatory controls over it. Most of what we own today is in electronic form and can be — and will be — frozen at a flip of an electronic switch.

No doubt Swiss bonds got sold at a high negative-yield, as people acclimatize, albeit unconsciously — as Indian cattle-owners do — to the new reality that losing a bit of your money to preserve the rest is “a good deal.” For the same reason, Euro-savers in search of liquidity have rushed to the over-priced US dollar.

Eventually, once the big money and technical momentum has over-priced the most liquid assets, it will start to over-flow into gold. People will then be thinking that no-yield is better than negative yields.