>Your question related to DEPOSIT rates. Here in Canada they have been low for 3+ years now. The bank that I used to use was paying .05% (no, that's not a typo) and for amounts over $50,000. it was .15%. Sheer robbery!
>Mind you, the best that I could find at that time was 4.00%, which rose for a few months to 4.35%, and is now at 2.75%.

Deposit rates, yes. Here we get ca. 0.5 - 1.0% - still not something to exclaim "what an excellent interest". And for long-term depostits (is that the correct name?) IR have gone down, from about 8% to 2%, within the last two years.

>The alleged reason for the low (fed) rate is that inflation is low and so the economy can be stimulated with these low rates. However, I don't know how they calculate the "inflation rate" because virtually nothing that I want/need to buy, except PC-related stuff, has stayed level in price. It has ALL gone up.

Pressumably, they take some sort of "weighted average" to calculate the interest rate - considering the items a "typical family" might need. It is hard to guess with how much honesty the calculations are done...

Hilmar.