I understand what interest rates are. I'm curious if we've entered some new era, though. I'd point you to this discussion, specifically this comment which shows the flat interest rate of the last decade or so. Interest rates in the US are only just now starting to rise, with rates in Europe and Japan at near-zero or negative. This article posits that levels of low volatility are a terrible omen, suggesting that the economy is tepid and underwhelming and possibly on the verge of belching up some rotten shit. Yet this tepid and underwhelming economy has been the beneficiary of as stimulative a program of monetary policy--for over a decade--that it could feasibly have hoped for. What happens if shit goes sideways? The gas pedal has already been depressed. Do we go to 11?