A commenter at DeLong's blog writes: 

dwb said...

one quibble, the support should be open ended - maybe 50 Bn is enough, but maybe its 25 or 100.

no one commented on the buried-deep-in-the-news-cycle news that Kocherlakota supports Evans:

"Once the central bank's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee makes its goals clear, Kocherlakota said, it could safely allow inflation to temporarily rise above its long-term 2-percent target to help bring down unemployment."

huh? he wasn't against the policy action per se, just the inconsistency vis-a-vis last year.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/21/us-usa-fed-kocherlakota-idUSTRE79K5ME20111021

I'm trying to think of an analogy of the feeling of hope I'm having but the only thing that comes to mind is a scene from the fantasy genre: Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers. It's when Gandalf and Pippen light the warning beacons of Gondor, in essence sending up a S.O.S. flare to Rohan calling for help. Aragorn is at Rohan's hill fort capital Edoras and sees the beacons lit in the distance. He becomes very excited because he knows what it means even if no one around him does. There's still hope. He's so jacked up he sprints to the throne room, brushing past oblivious villagers, to tell King Théoden the news personally and convince him to ride to Gondor's aid. Sauron's victory would have been assured if the free people of Middle Earth remained divided. But it was not to be as the Rohirrim answered Gondor's plea* for help.

Contrast the eerie, sinking feeling of the risk analysts driving around Manhattan in Margin Call, or Billy Crudup's Geithner in HBO's Too Big To Fail where they talk about how weird it is that people have no idea of the disaster that is coming.




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* NGDP level targeting is slightly deceptive for the right reasons (see Krugman) just as Gandalf had Pippen light the warning beacons of Gondor against the wishes of Denethor, the Steward of Gondor.