At Last--Banks Now Unwilling to Lend at a Better Rate
World's banks join up to slash interest rates
Sam Zuckerman, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, October 9, 2008
(10-08) 21:43 PDT San Francisco -- Government banking authorities in North America and Europe fired another weapon Wednesday in their fight to contain a historic financial crisis that now spans the globe, pushing through coordinated moves to slash interest rates.
The Federal Reserve and five other central banks cut their key short-term rates by half a percentage point in bids to loosen the flow of credit and head off the economic disaster that would follow a prolonged breakdown of loan markets worldwide. That brought the Fed's benchmark federal funds rate - which banks charge each other for overnight loans - to 1.5 percent, its lowest level in four years.
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Absurdly low interest rates are, of course, how Alan Greenspan got us here in the first place. But hey, when all else fails, go back to wha…