Two of the 10 votes on the Federal Open Market Committee, which determines whether to lower the rate, indicated a preference for leaving the rate at 2.25%.
In economics terms, highly-indebted persons have an infinite discount rate and an infinite preference for the present, which leads them to make decisions that can have disastrous long-term effects.
It makes sense, but shifting a longstanding cultural preference could take a while and in the meantime elephants are being slaughtered at an alarming rate.
Times are tough in the U.S., but a preference for cheap Chinese products by U.S. consumers and corporations is rising at an even faster rate than it did in the recession of the early 1990s.