Congratulations, you’ve won a thousand euros!

Slovakia will get about €7.5 billion – but for what?

(Source: Sme - Vladimír Šimíček)

It’s not often your bank manager phones you up to tell you she has decided to borrow €1,500 on your behalf and wants to hand it over as soon as possible.

Even better, she proposes to present some of this amount to you as a gift, and charge you interest on the rest based on the bank’s credit rating, not yours.

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As a result, the rate will be close to zero or, owing to the topsy-turvy world of sovereign bonds (for the bank, in this case, is a sovereign bond issuer), even negative.

My fellow Slovak taxpayers, the lucky recipient is you!

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