Negative Rates... Negative Outcomes

``Negative rates, however, tell our man the converse to the above: they implicitly prize tomorrow's goods more highly than today's... That being the case, why on earth would any sane company boss make sizeable new expenditures whose IRR is deemed to be negative in cash terms -- and which will therefore both deplete his equity and sap his means of paying dividends to the firms' owners -- when he can, as is becoming widely bemoaned, make alternative use of the same financial means to boost the price of his shares...? ''