In an interview with The Real News Network, Gerald Epstein, Co-Director of PERI, says: "The real problem is that the financial system is still broken. The government, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury never required the banks to really clean up their books. Never pushed the banks to start lending to small businesses. Never pushed them to give debt forgiveness in any significant way. Moreover, the banks are sitting on millions if not billions of dollars of excess reserves instead of lending them to small businesses and so forth. So the more positive aspects of lower interest rates really haven't helped most people. It is true this time around that it's primarily the wealthy that are benefiting from the low interest rates. But that does not mean that raising interest rates will help most people. In fact if anything, it will slow down the economy more
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