I certainly disagree that negative interest rates are necessary.
The problem with central bank / government policy in the modern world is that they view everything through a thick sheet of plastic (statistics) that distorts what's really happening and removes all detail. Governments see an apparently simple relationship:
spending -> jobs -> votes
... and decide that therefore, more spending is always good. What they don't see is whether the spending and the jobs it leads to are actually useful for society or just convoluted forms of makework.
This was most obvious in the housing bubble. Spain has <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2102074/Spain-haunte... "ghost housing estates"</a> where houses were built far in excess of actual non-stimulated demand. Once banks stopped squirting fresh money into the system via mortgage lending the demand for these houses evaporated - people would take them when the houses were effectively free, but if forced to pay for them more directly they weren't interested.
Nonetheless from the perspective of central bankers and politicians between 2001 and 2008 they were doing everything right. There was lots of spending (on houses) that led to lots of jobs (in construction) that hired lots of low paid workers who might otherwise be unemployed (leading to votes). Job done!
If the banking system wasn't constantly tampering with the money supply we might well have a period with less spending, fewer jobs and more unhappy voters. But once the economy got unbent it'd start creating jobs that are more socially and economically useful, and the end result would be better.