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My first reaction to GR's post was to ignore it. But a note in Barron's on line today made me reconsider. Here is a snippet from that article:

Another number that gets bandied about is that of the10-year Treasury note yield, which the popular media claims calls the tune for the 30-year mortgage rate. (Because interest and principal get paid monthly on a mortgage, as opposed to semiannual interest payments and repayment of principal at maturity, the cash flows of a 30-year mortgage and a 10-year bond are roughly equivalent. Also, few 30-year mortgages run that long because people move, get divorced and die before the loan gets paid off.)
The 10-year note hovers around 4%. These are not typical times, however. Treasury yields have plunged as the result of investors seeking shelter from the credit storm. Borrowing costs in the private sector, either for mortgages or for corporations, have not followed those of the U.S. government. Still, some commentators persist in citing "low interest rates" as a bullish factor. Those low rates apply only to a select few.
Finally, there is the most scrutinized interest rate on earth -- the Federal Reserves target for federal funds, which is the cost for overnight interbank loans. Uniquely in a free-market system, the price of overnight money is set by government diktat.
In normal times, all money-market rates closely follow the fed-funds rate, currently pegged at 4.5%. These are anything but normal times. The three-month Treasury bill hovers just above 3% while the three-month London interbank offered rate costs about 5.15%. Libor isn't some exotic foreign interest rate but the basic cost of money for banks and, perhaps more importantly, the base for ARM rates for many American homeowners.
In other words, Libor is the real-world cost of money. And the fed funds rate? In the words of veteran observers such as James Bianco, head of the eponymously named Bianco Research, the funds rate has become a rate with no meaning. Banks can borrow overnight at that rate, but no longer.
The erstwhile benchmarks no longer have the same meaning, which is an indication that we are set adrift in a sea of uncertainty. What can correct that? Government-led schemes? They may suppress the symptoms but can't cure the disease.
Time heals all wounds. Time also wounds all heels. It takes time to work out the problems we face. Don't tell that to traders looking to make this quarter's numbers or politicians looking ahead to next year's elections.
In the meantime, focus on the numbers that matter, and not just those that the media reports on a rote basis.

Up and Down Wall Street Daily - Barron's Online