The Federal Reserve’s decision Sept. 13 to intervene in markets on an unlimited scale until the economy gets on track has drawn plenty of debate and analysis. But what do we know now about whether it is already working?

The ultimate goal of the “QE3” policy, as the third round of quantitative easing has become widely known, is to bring joblessness down to more reasonable levels without allowing inflation to get out of control. Only with time will we know for sure whether Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and the Fed’s policy committee have threaded that needle correctly.