Passing on costs is a long term pattern. Relatively recently (40 years or so - I did say 'relatively') United States' Congress' changing of the defined benefit

Passing on costs is a long term pattern. Relatively recently (40 years or so - I did say 'relatively') United States' Congress' changing of the defined benefit (DB) plans to defined contributions (DC) was a prime example (ERISA - think 401K here) and now some in the USA's House of Representatives are trying to get out of bailing out State's shortfalls for State's DBs: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-114hres41ih/pdf/BILLS-114hres41ih.pdf http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-114hres41ih/pdf/BILLS-114... Not likely to pass, necessarily, but a sign of the times. Citizens of countries with Central Banks live in debt-based economies, and thanks to many of the recent gyrations to "correct" some of these economies, more currency has been created. To me, this is another reason to consider raising rates even higher, to offset the weakening currency.