Things in Europe were normal for about 300 years... and then Mario Draghi's central planning took over. Deutsche Bank shares a collection of charts of 10 year yields back through the centuries for the main European Government bond markets and also for the US, UK, Japan and Swiss equivalents, as well as 5-year yields over a much shorter time horizon (decades). As DB notes: "only when you eyeball these charts can you start to comprehend the distortions that have occurred and the uniqueness of the current situation. Many people now think European yields can go even lower but many of these same people thought they'd go higher 6 or 12 months ago so one would caution against placing high convictions on anyone's forecasts for yields at the moment (including ours)." We wish the ECB all the luck in the world when the time to unwind the biggest distortion in European bond yield history finally arrives. Heeeere's Europe: But it's not just Europe: "everyone else is doing it too." And 5 years - look for things to get a whole lot NIRPier before everything falls apart: