"Given the willingness of the Central Banks to intervene in the economy and the fact that the populace has no problem taking on tremendous debt..."
Populace may be willing but does populace have the money to loan? Or will we be depending on rest of world to loan us the money? Will they keep that up at current rate? Remember we've a war or two or three to fight and we plan to cut taxes. (At least so the candidates say.)

In the US, the Government has essentially agreed to buy bad debts. At present, the debt holders seem to be investing in short-term treasuries, i.e., lending the money back to the Government, because of the general attitude of fear in the credit markets. Thus rates on short-term treasuries are extremely low. It will be interesting to see what happens to these rates when they want to take the money out and lend it to someone else. Then we'll find who has money that they are willing to loan to the feds.