Mr Draghi said that the ECB was prepared to cut interest rates further should conditions make it necessary.
With consumer-backed loans, particularly with mortgages, the rate of prepayment on the loan is rather predictable depending on current interest rates and economic conditions.
Indeed, taking account of the impact on the economy of higher share prices, as well as last year's cuts in interest rates, financial conditions in America are now at their most accommodating since 1993 (see article), when the economy was crawling out of recession.
The lion's share of the bailout for Indonesia came in the form of loans, with maturities, conditions and compounding interest.
It has been ahead in offering cards to lower-quality borrowers, in varying interest rates and terms and conditions, and in offering rewards and affinity programmes.
And the few economists who most thoroughly understand the central role of interest rates in reflecting economic conditions tend to be of the Austrian school, which tends to have a strong aversion to math personally and epistemologically.
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The virtue of these policies in the current context is that they allow the Federal Reserve to continue to push down interest rates and ease credit conditions in a range of markets, despite the fact that the federal funds rate is close to its zero lower bound.
Under normal circumstances, interest rates would adjust to the level of inflation, but given the persistently soft economic conditions of the past few years, interest rates have remained low in spite of inflation.
Raising interest rates to tighten domestic monetary conditions can attract yet more foreign money.
It should lend only to pre-certified countries facing temporary liquidity shocks, on a short-term basis, at a penal interest rate, and without economic conditions attached.
Global economic conditions, inflation, interest rates, tax rates, and so on are all wild cards in retirement plans if they rely on mutual funds and equivalent vehicles.
One such index, as calculated by Goldman Sachs, shows that even after the Fed's cut in interest rates last autumn, monetary conditions are, by historical standards, far from lax.
The level of the index reflects the looseness of financial conditions: an increase in interest rates or the exchange rate leads to a tightening, a rise in share prices to a loosening.
Almost all Soviet Bloc borrowers already receive substantially lower interest rates and more generous terms and conditions on loans from Western banks than, for example, Latin American debtor nations, not to mention government guaranteed credits.
If Greece were to bring debt levels down to the 60% of GDP limit established by the EU by 2040, under very favorable conditions such as 6% interest rates on its bonds (compared with 16% currently), and 4% annual GDP growth, the country would need a primary surplus of 6% of GDP.
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The ECB is having to make decisions about interest rates for countries with widely divergent economic conditions and inflation rates.
In order to combat rising inflation, the number one problem facing the country today, Beijing has been tightening credit conditions in recent months, raising interest rates on four occasions.
In other words, instead of setting a date for interest rates to go up and easy monetary conditions to tighten, they would seek to tie those decisions to variables that reflect their dual mandate (i.e. price stability and full employment).
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The propensity of business conditions to change is driving the increasing interest in the cloud.
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Zero interest rates are not a feature of natural economic conditions, not even in post-capitalist states, like America and Europe.
The central bank said conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low interest rates until mid-2013, but investors may have ignored the fact that the rationale behind the free money policy is a domestic economy that is at renewed risk of grinding back to a halt.
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Bringing down the deficit is also one of the conditions set by the central bank to cut interest rates.
Worryingly, part of this new borrowing has been at variable interest rates, which makes it susceptible to tighter credit conditions.
Granted, declining interest rates over the past 10 years contributed to market conditions that were conducive to positive bond performance.
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The economy was hurt by high interest rates and policy hurdles at home and tough economic conditions in major global economies that affected exports.
Arguing for sturdiness rather than fragility, growth conditions are favorable in terms of global real interest rates, low inventories and strong January growth in U.S. incomes and spending.
Meanwhile, U.S. Federal Reserve policy-setters acknowledged in a statement Tuesday that economic conditions remain soft and they intend to leave interest rates at record low levels until mid-2013, which analysts have described as supportive for gold.
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During tough economic conditions, credit card companies can always slash interest rates in order to entice customers into using their credit cards more often, but this will mean less money generated from the credit used by consumers.
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