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Low interest rates benefit individuals or investors who own or want to buy assets; in that regard, they disproportionately benefit wealthier Americans.

Low interest rates are usually attributed to low inflation, weak economic growth and super easy monetary policy. But there's another deep-seated factor that doesn't get much attention: demographics.

It would be helpful if someone would lay out exactly the economic mechanism that gets us from yet lower interest rates to actual economic activity.

The crisis and recession have led to very low interest rates, it is true, but these events have also destroyed jobs, hamstrung economic growth and led to sharp declines in the values of many homes and businesses.

Low interest rates are a big opportunity for investment. But the issue is that this money should go to the real economy, not the financial economy.

Interest rate cuts have an effect in stimulating an economy by directly or indirectly making someone, somewhere, spend more than they otherwise would. That extra spending increases demand and ensures that we all carry on with work to do, without us having to slash our prices or our wrists.

Well, the U.S. is running a current account deficit; we are creating lots of investment opportunities in the United States that exceed our own domestic savings rates, so the issue here is to encourage higher savings rates in the United States.

Lower interest rates are usually considered good for stocks because they lower the cost of borrowing and make bonds a less attractive alternative investment.

Interest rates are used to achieve overall economic stability.

I'm not an economist, but I have spent time around thousands of small-business owners and investors, and I remain skeptical - despite the best intentions of the Fed - that even lower interest rates can make a meaningful dent in our unemployment problem.