Cuts in official interest rates in the industrial countries have also helped stabilize global financial conditions.
Introduced in the early 1990s, Mr Kotlikoff's unpleasant arithmetic is attracting renewed official interest.
Yet this flicker of official interest in their plight represents significant progress for Sarju and his family.
Please note, the official interest rate on new EE series savings bonds changes twice a year.
Losses on loans would rise alarmingly if the economy were to contract sharply or official interest rates to rise.
Raising official interest rates sufficiently to prick what may or may not be one could itself trigger a deep recession.
When it met on April 2nd, the Reserve Bank held its official interest rate unchanged, at 4.25%, but may well raise rates in May.
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The eurozone can't take all the credit for that - the Federal Reserve's commitment to keep its official interest so low is clearly a big part of it.
He said aggressive easing will raise expectations for inflation, and that recent official interest in Japan joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks is a plus for the stock market.
On the other hand, if a central bank responds by cutting official interest rates too drastically, it may push up inflation, or cause expectations of future inflation to rise.
He said aggressive monetary easing will raise expectations for inflation, and that the recent official interest in Japan joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks is also a plus for stocks.
The projection was based on "the assumption that official interest rates move in line with market expectations of a small rise in rates over the next year, " the Bank said.
The rate at which banks lend to each other has been rising, which has meant that banks are toughening up their lending terms even though official interest rates are falling.
If enough people can be declared eligible for so-called income-based repayment plans that reduce their monthly bills and even their principal, does it really matter what the official interest rate is?
That was the meaning of the announcement of the US Federal Reserve that it anticipates holding its official interest rate, the so-called federal funds rate, at exceptionally low levels "at least" through mid-2013.
The Committee noted that cuts in official interest rates could not be expected to resolve the current problems in financial markets and that a significant increase in the capital of the banking sector would be required.
Australia was in focus after the Reserve Bank of Australia lowered its official interest rate by a quarter percentage point to 2.75 percent amid some signs the economy is coming off the boil as the Australian dollar rises.
But if there is one thing about which investors can be more or less sure, it is that for the first time in years, official interest rates in America, Europe and Japan are heading in the same direction.
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Although the devaluation of sterling we've seen in the last few years - caused by a near-zero official interest rate and the massive money creation of quantitative easing - has probably been healthy, especially for exporters, more extreme degradation of the currency would bring risks.
"This method was not suitable as mortgage interest payments are directly influenced by official interest rates, which would make the new index less suitable for use as an inflation target measure, were the government to decide to do so at some point in the future, " the ONS said.
Apart from adding to the woes of those already in debt, many people will have noticed that the "official rate" of interest charged by the Revenue on unpaid tax is currently around 7.5% for the first thirty days with a surcharge of a further 5% thereafter.
The current official effort to rally greater interest and discussion on these issues may be driven by other motives too, he says.
Its mayor is Ray Mallon, a controversial police chief turned local official who showed an early interest in zero-tolerance measures and was elected as an independent.
It also creates the potential for the Fed to (mistakenly) provide opportunities for arbitrage between the official gold price and the interest rates set by the central bank.
Where money changes hands, there are issues of security, and because a thriving marketplace creates its own jobs and supports other industries, it is usually in the interest of some official body to make sure that the trading that goes on is fair--not always an easy task (see story, p. 45).
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But the fact that the Fed failed to announce nominal income growth as its official target (focusing instead on interest and inflation rates) made it more difficult for the Fed to keep the economy on this path during the financial crisis.
The European official said no Western country had any interest in military action in Syria, however.
Russia has many different types of interest rates, but the official refinancing rate is currently 8.25%.
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Like interest and principal payments on official government debt, these other payments are coming in the future.
In Havana, Lynn Roche, an official with the U.S. Interest Section, said section officials couldn't discuss any case of an American who hasn't signed a privacy act waiver.
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