David Beckworth directed me to a Bloomberg article discussing the Fed’s new policy approach:

Officials chewed over, but ultimately rejected, a slew of more daring proposals, from raising the inflation target to abandoning it for a nominal GDP target. They were also cautious in re-examining what they might do when rates hit zero.

They decided negative interest rates would be a bad option in the U.S. and haven’t warmed to the idea of capping the yields on some Treasury securities — known as yield-curve control — though they haven’t entirely ruled that one out.

In the end they see their current tools — bond purchases and communication on the future path of interest rates — as still the best options. Atop that they will add the important wrinkle that inflation should average close to 2% over time.

So no NGDP level targeting, not even price level targeting. It looks like average inflation targeting, which is pretty weak tea.

Oh wait:

The shift, however, will only go so far. When the Fed articulates its new embrace of inflation averaging, officials likely won’t apply it in rule-like fashion, economists said, and may not even mention the word “average.”

That final sentence brought to mind a classic Monty Python routine.