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) ) Trust your patient's care to the team of pediatric surgeons at Sanford Children's. With the largest group of specially trained pediatric surgeons and the only Level II pediatric trauma facility in North Dakota, our advance care options allow us to deliver the best quality of care, for our smallest patients up to young adults. Our specialized surgery team is skilled in areas including: • General surgery • Neurosurgery • Oncology • Orthopedic To reFer Your PaTienT, CaLL sanForD cHILDren's aT (844) 424PeDs. 032000-00183 2/16 • Trauma • Ear Nose and Throat • Many more and central banks began to search for other innovative ways to stimulate aggregate demand throughout their economies, ultimately leading to the birth of negative interest rates. During tough times, banks typically keep excess reserves on hand rather than loan them out to consumers. Negative interest rates were conceived as a means of discouraging banks from parking money in their country's central banks and encouraging them to lend it into the economy, thus increasing the rate at which money moves around an economy. In theory, this is a form of economic stimulus. Negative interest rates might also lower the value of the currency, which might stimulate exports and raise profits of companies doing business overseas — a short-term double stimulus. It is important to note that the entities subject to negative interest rates or negative bond yields are generally very large institutional investors such as large money center banks, hedge funds and sovereign wealth funds. The Fed still pays member ba nks a positive return for deposits, but the Federa l Reserve Rate is at a historica lly low level. In December, the Fed raised it by 0.25 percent. Our central bank is going in the opposite direction of the rest of the developed world. Negative rates also manifest themselves when bonds trade at negative yields. The di™erence is that negative bond yields generally occur as a result of market forces, not action by the Fed. By the end of last year, roughly a third of all the bonds issued by eurozone governments carried negative yields, meaning that it wasn't just banks that were willing to buy investments guaranteed to lose money. French government bonds with a two-year maturity "paid" investors a depressing -0.292 percent, and German two-year bond yields reached a record low of -0.348 percent. Now Japan's two-year bond yields are at -0.85 percent and bonds with five-year maturities are "paying"-0.08 percent. It remains to be seen whether negative interest rates and bond yields will successfully stimulate the economies of countries experimenting with this concept. Thus far, the downside has been limited, and no major crises have resulted. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and as economies continue to struggle toward recovery in Europe, Japan and elsewhere in the world, nearly anything is worth a try. Bill Strand, Founder and Principal, has over 30 years of experi- ence in the financial services industry and founded Paradigm: Strategies in Wealth Management LLC in 1995. He has particular expertise in helping physicians achieve financial success and devise creative strategies to preserve the wealth they have worked so hard to build for themselves and their families. He meets many physicians who are extremely busy practicing medicine but have no investment plan for financial independence. Find out more at planparadigm.com or by contacting Strand at 763-201-1025 or bstrand@planparadigm.com. ■ M D N E W S . C O M /// M D N E W S M I N N E S O TA ■ 2 016 1 1