From the Guardian Editorial Board
Small events can take on great significance. One sleepy summer nine years ago, the French bank BNP Paribas suspended trading in three of its money-market funds. The announcement caused a tremor in financial markets, but raised barely an eyebrow elsewhere. Little more than a fortnight later, trading was resumed. Maybe, just maybe, someone at BNP thought that would be the end of the story. They can’t have thought that historians would take that initial announcement on 7 August 2007 as the start of the credit crunch. The suspension of trade was such an unusual move, and came as the worries over subprime mortgages had built to a critical point. Trust in the financial system eroded, then crumbled entirely.
The historic slump that followed has helped produce all kinds of unforeseeables: Britain’s exit from the EU, the ascent of Nigel Farage, Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party. And perhaps, just perhaps, the next chapter began this week, with an innocuous-seeming letter from a high-street bank to its customers.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/26/the-guardian-view-on-negative-interest-rates-positives-and-minuses