perhaps you don't know. the demand for credit is non-existent, hence the low rates.
Normally you talk a lot of sense cypherdoc; but it's worrying that you think central bank interest rates have anything to do with demand for credit. They
should have everything to do with demand for credit; but the rate is not set by a market, it's set by a committee.
well i think there are differing opinions on this, like the horse before the buggy or vice versa. the only area of consumer loans that has grown over the last 4 yrs is in the student loan arena and thats more a bad sign than anything else. the kids can't get work so they decide to go to school instead and get degrees from worthless predatory lenders like the Univ. of Phoenix via Sallie Mae.
since the demand is so low, interest rates will naturally fall, but you're right that the central banks try to lower rates to boost demand by buying UST's in the open market creating artificial demand (~60-70% of demand is from the Fed); the problem is it isn't working. you can't force ordinary ppl or corporations to borrow; the old pushing on a string analogy. this is why the economy refuses to get back to ordinary growth; we already have too many debts and we're tapped out.
as bitcool says above, somehow consumers are spending but its b/c they're decreasing their savings rate. thats not a good long term strategy.
eventually the bond vigilantes will come to the US. they've been hibernating for 30 yrs. and then the Fed will find they've lost control of interest rates. you see that the CB's in Europe have already had this happen to them.
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