Keeping interest rates low is considered the� first line of defense for central banks bent on easing the credit crisis and getting banks to lend again. The Federal Reserve's target for the federal funds rate - the overnight interest rate that banks charge each other - has been kept at a rock-bottom 0% to 0.25% ever since December 2008. A growing number of economists now think it could stay there well into 2011 or even 2012, prompted by fears that a spreading debt crisis in Europe could hurt a budding U.S. recovery."
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