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As interest rates near zero other factors come into play...Beyond this point lay dragons...
'In monetary economics, a liquidity trap occurs when the economy is stagnant, the nominal interest rate is close or equal to zero, and the monetary authority is unable to stimulate the economy with traditional monetary policy tools. In this kind of situation, people do not expect high returns on physical or financial investments, so they keep assets in short-term cash bank accounts or hoards rather than making long-term investments. This makes the recession even more severe, and can contribute to deflation.'
'The monetary authority can increase the overall quantity of money available to the economy, but traditional monetary policy tools do not inject new money directly into the economy. Rather, the new liquidity created must be injected into the real economy by way of financial intermediaries such as banks. In a liquidity trap environment, banks are unwilling to lend, so the central bank's newly-created liquidity is trapped behind unwilling lenders.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquidity_trap
The rumour is that a giant taxpayer funded bailout (the first of many) is being worked on right now. The key is to make it look like it is helping the sheeple while actually taking their money (through increased government spending) and transferring it directly to the undercapitalized banking sector. The fly in the ointment is that the USA banking sector appears to have zero interest in prudent business operations, so the taxpayer money will likely be pissed away as fast as possible. IMHO, the main problem which is not being addressed is that the shareholders of North American financial institutions have little or no power to control the reckless and self serving actions of upper management and the board. This isn't capitalism at all-the owners of these companies are just chickens to be plucked-call it an "insider business model".