It appears 0% is here for the foreseeable future.
A year ago, the Federal Reserve took its key overnight lending rate, the fed funds rate, down to near 0% for the first time in its history in an effort to keep the economy from falling into depression.
The cheap money meant lower rates for consumers on credit cards and home equity loans, as well as for many business loans.
The threat of a depression is widely acknowledged to have passed and most economists believe the economy has begun at least a modest recovery. But the Fed hasn’t moved the rates since, and experts don’t think they’re likely to do so for the foreseeable future, perhaps not until 2011.
