Well, this is just food for thought, but if the Federal Reserve wasn't "Federal" at all, and just a seperate entity (this is purely hypothetical, of course), do you think that the fiddling of interest rates would be more so or less an influence on micro economy and large scale consumer spending? My thoughts: probably not. Government influenced/controlled or not, Alan Greenspan is still going to keep his fingers on the strings of the national interest rate...why? Because he's old, and old people are stubborn! (It's true, dont deny it, you know it's true).
But seriously, not that I think Mr. 'Span is an economic genius, but he's unfortunately one of the best people we have, until we can find a cure for death and the technology of time travel to conjure up such folks as Alan Smith and Keynes. But that's just the Jew's 2 cents (and no I'm not jewish, so that doesn't explain my economic interest, lol).
The Big Jewboski~