[dragonwriter]

> The Fed has been maintaining emergency interest rates for a decade now

There is no such thing as “emergency interest rates”. Rate targets are set based on, primarily, balancing employment and inflation concerns, and there is no special “emergency” threshold.

> When do we expect the emergency to end ad rates to go back to the good old 3-5% band from prior to 2008?

That 3-5% band “prior to 2008” only goes back to 2005, when rates were again below 3%, for longer than the period from 2005-2008 where they were in that range.

Some of it is broad economic conditions, but mostly it's just that the Fed has been covering for the failure of Congress to act when needed; Congress has more powerful and focussed economic tools and is really intended to be the primary actor for everything but smoothing the edges of economic fluctuations, but has been largely asleep at the switch (when not actively reinforcing negative conditions) for the past couple of decades.