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Quantitative easing is officially here:

The Fed said it would buy an additional $600 billion in long-term Treasury securities by the end of June 2011, somewhat more than the $300 billion to $500 billion that many in the markets had expected.

The central bank said it would also continue its program, announced in August, of reinvesting proceeds from its mortgage-related holdings to buy Treasury debt. The Fed now expects to reinvest $250 billion to $300 billion under that program by the end of June, making the total asset purchases in the range of $850 billion to $900 billion.

I would like to feel optimistic about this. It’s certainly better than nothing. I just wish that “better than nothing” weren’t the best we could do at the moment.

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

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