Thanks for the responses to date, but we may be darting down a rabbit 
burrow, or at least opening a different thread.

Obviously the old and basic question of whether the interest rate is 
a price at all / the price of what (money, loans, waiting) still has sting.

<The rate of interest is not a price.  It is the discount rate, or 
the average of the population's preference for goods now versus goods later.

Scot Stradley>


If the interest rate is a discount rate reflecting time preference, 
then it reflects a swapping ratio between a bundle of present 
consumption vs future consumption. I thought that a swapping ratio is 
exactly what a relative price is. If I understand "the" Austrian 
position at all, an artificial lowering of the interest rate sends a 
signal that gives an incentive for firms to over-invest in long-lived 
capital. I'd call an incentive signal a price. If the interest rate 
is not a price, what is this thing that the Fed is levering at will? 
I add that the Fed does not have the clairvoyant power to discern and 
then announce a change in the economy's time preference.

Bruce Littleboy