Not only do they take the right measures, They do it with quantities unmatched across the pond. We remarked earlier, it doesn’t happen often when Europe takes the lead in some big event, but they definitely got this one figured out much better than the US.

European governments offer $2 trillion for banks
Monday October 13, 11:07 am ET
European governments separately putting nearly $2 trillion on the line to help banks

• PARIS (AP) — European governments say they are putting nearly $2 trillion on the line to protect the continent’s banks through guarantees and other emergency measures.
• Pledges by Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Austria and Portugal in recent days have reached a total of $1.96 trillion. The sums are considered a maximum, and might not all be spent if the financial crisis eases.
• Many of the pledges came Monday, a day after the 15 nations that use the euro currency agreed on an unprecedented bank rescue plan.
• Europe’s most unified response yet to the financial crisis dwarfs the the Bush administration’s $700 billion rescue program.
• The plan is helping calm markets after they dived last week. European and Asian stocks are up.

Gordon Brown started it all, by getting the plan right, and making a truly increadible amount of money available (400 billion pound sterling) to execute it, overwhelming the markets. They learned from Black Monday, apparently..

If not for these people, we would have looked at another very bleak day on the markets. But the war hasn’t been won yet, but it’s a very good start.