Low interest rates are often a cure. Now they’re also a symptom.

Recession indicators are blinking worldwide, with financial markets rattled this week by bad news from all corners: Germany, China, Argentina, and even the United States, where bond interest rates “inverted” in what many see as a signal of economic trouble ahead.

But the worry runs deeper than that uncertainty. 

For decades, an inverted yield curve, when shorter-term bonds yield a higher interest rate than long-term ones, has been seen as a likely recession indicator. What’s different this time is that interest rates on all U.S. Treasury debts are so low that there’s little room for the Federal Reserve to deploy interest rate cuts to stave off a recession.

“Monetary policy I think is impotent” in the current environment, says Gary Shilling, who heads an economic forecasting firm in Springfield, New Jersey.

Ultra-low interest rates have become a feature of the world economy since the Great

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