[anm89]

>There is no such thing as "artificial" or "natural" rates of interest.

In a sense this is semantically correct, there is no one true interest rate, in a hypothetical pure market there are many rates for many different types of transactions.

But to say that wildly misses the point that the rates for all transactions are hugely skewed, all in the same direction, because a single player, who writes the laws, and prints the money, is putting enormous pressure on rates.

So yes, there is no objective one natural rate. But all rates right now are extremely artificially skewed.

> Why would, or should, they "tick up"? Capital is abundant.

Capital is abundant for the sole purpose of keeping rates low. You are confusing the causality here. If they weren't being suppressed, and actors were setting rates on a per transaction basis, then they would drastically tick up as many of the underlying entities economy wide have riskier default profiles than they have in the past. This isn't conspiratorial or speculative. This is widely understood to be true by mainstream economists, even those who support the rate suppression.

[_lqaf]

I just want to take a moment to note that capitalists are lobbying the central government over a difference of opinion about interest rates, asking the central planners to adjust The Number.

...And several Russian novelists burst out laughing in their graves.