All efforts by the Treasury will be fruitless mainly because they have no room to manuver due to our huge financial hole (debt). The Federal Funds Rate (FFR) rate reduced to 1% is the lowest in 4 years and even lowering it to zero (as Japan did during their real-estate bust) won't get the economy back since many consumers (you and I) are knee deep in debt themselves. The treasury has no alternatives and must hope we can produce enough goods in the future to pay for our previous debts. Japan and China have stated they no longer are looking to purchase our debt. We are going down the path expanding the money supply, i.e., (bailouts); those who will take it will want a better return (higher rates) because the debt already held is pretty high and there comes a point where you can no longer accept the risk of the borrower defaulting.

As with all businesses or consumers (the U.S. can be considered one big business). Those that have cash, low debt, produce lots of goods/services and make profits can get the good interest rates, since their ability to pay is not compromised and their risk is lower. I'd feel better about loaning money to a business like that.

Those will be knee deep in debt, need more loans, can't pay back their other loans have much greater risk of defaulting. Usually these companies don't have much room to manuver either and can go bankrupt. My conclusion is the U.S. is the latter of the two businesses. Which, by all practical means, is higher interest rates for all of us, no matter what the Treasury does.