> Any amount of belief I had that I understand any of this has evaporated when I learned that negative interest rates are not only a thing, but also a thing we may all enjoy soon enough, and that they're apparently a good thing.

As someone mentioned before, their is far more to be discussed on the matter, but be under no illusion: 0 to negative % interest rates are a disaster waiting to happen.

When savers are punished for their otherwise prudent behaviour for a rainy day, mainly because central banks are increasing the monetary supply to offset the lack of activity in M1 and M2 figures that are supposed to denote a healthy economy but do so in headlong manner, they are forcing people to spend money they don't have which in turn increases consumption rates (yet another critical metric in their calculus) and will create the all too common situation in which they cannot afford to not to spend it as it loses value (purchasing power) the longer you hold it in fiat: for context this is also why most cannot afford to have one unexpected expense and it ruins them financially as people as well as companies are looking for more riskier ways to hedger the depreciation to offset the lack of interest rates.

And this applies to business and banks, as well as the citizenry.

All of the EU technocrats are just doing the same thing the US Fedesral reserve has has been doing but from a less vantaged position since they do not have World reserve currency status, and despite their large geographical (in and outside of the Schengen Zone) EU pact footprint are still very reliant on Chinese imports and requires them to play the 'depreciate your currency' game of Russian Roulette to remain competitive in the export market and keep up with the machinations with the Yuan, USD, Yen, and now even the CHF!

So to suffice it to say, no your feeling of bewilderment is not wrong, but your faith in these technocrat's fiscal policy requires far more scrutiny than you've given it because actually this is a disaster waiting to happen--they've already inflated the housing Market in N. America in some place to levels above where they were in 2007 before the crisis as a result of cheap money and lower interest rates. I think most people understand this in a latent manner but cannot understand why it is as the lack the understanding much less the time and resolve to look into it.

The US stock market is at all time highs in the middle of a Global pandemic, recession and more and more people are out of work. None of this makes any sense, and Corporations get more bail out money especially in relation to the citizenry so its very perplexing, but it has to be said that Central banks can only do this because so much of the World is entirely ignorant on financial and fiscal matters, and in my opinion is purposely done and neglected in most formal education (and I include University as I've sat in lower division econ classes and had to walk out due to the absurdity) unless you're a masochist that is willing to put yourself through the immense pain of trying to understand it.

But once you get to the Naked short selling, Re-hypothecation part and then compare it how much unfunded liabilities exists much of it as debt on blance sheets in the derivatives markets (yet another bizarro World situation) all over the World you start to realize that its the most evil, disastrous casino level ponzi scheme imaginable that has so many dire consequences for everyone except those created it as they ALWAYS come out on top in the end.

In short: the fiat monetary system has been in a zombie state for over 100 years now and requires constant machinations (negative % rates are just one) to keep it propped to give it the illusion it 'works' which opens the door for banksters and other unscrupulous actors to game the system in their favour for immense short term gain to the detriment of the rest of us in these ever more severe boom and bust cycles.

We should at least have the option to opt-out. I'm so much less worried about the future because of Bitcoin than I was even in 2007 as we were starting to head into the 2008 crisis where my anxiety levels were through the roof for years and which messed up my emotional, mental and physical health pretty badly to be honest.