A ridiculous chart shows just how low interest rates are around the world

Interest rates are low, pretty much everywhere around the world right now?

So low that if you take the central bank benchmark interest rates of 23 advanced economies and add them together, they're lower than the Bank of England's main rate was way back in September 1992. Now you actually have countries like Switzerland dragging the overall level down these days.

Take a look at this chart from Oxford Economics:

Oxford Economics

The chart doesn't really have much economic meaning beyond being a weird thing to look at - but it is definitely bizarre.

Here's Oxford Economics:

Ben Bernanke has been arguing that it is changing estimates of future growth and inflation are to blame for very low interest rates, rather than an overly activist Fed.

Our results support the view that the expansionary impact of the oil price shock is dampened to some extent because of the limited capacity of central banks to loosen monetary policy.

In advanced economies this partly reflects the zero- bound limiting the extent to which policy can be loosened as inflationary pressures abate. Average interest rates in 23 advanced economies we consider here are less than 0.5%. Put another way, the sum in the 23 is 11.4%, lower than one country's (UK) rates reached (briefly) in September 1992!