US President George W Bush is about to address the nation shortly over the $700bn (£378bn) bail-out of Wall Street, in the face of growing resistance and criticism to the plan from Congress and the American public (who face coughing up over $2,000 each if the bailout is approved).
Congress cool after bail-out plea
Meanwhile the FBI has begun preliminary investigations into potential corporate fraud at mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the failed investment bank Lehman Brothers and troubled insurer American International Group (AIG).
Key finance firms 'probed by FBI'
And the effects of this financial crisis continue to spread like an epidemic. In Hong Kong, thousands of savers mobbed branches of Bank of East Asia on Wednesday to withdraw their deposits, as the bank scrambled to reassure them that rumours it was overexposed to Lehman Brothers and AIG was untrue. The speculation was believed to have been spread by mobile phone. The Bank stated that its total outstanding exposure to Lehman Brothers was HK$422.8m (£29m), and to AIG was HK$49.9m (£3.5m).
Withdrawals hit Bank of East Asia
Privatise the profits, socialise the losses. The American taxpayer might not fully understand mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps, but they do realise when they've been dumped with the bill for financial trading gone awry, and they have every right to be angry with those responsible (and those authorities who stood idly by). But when the alternative is possibly watching the global financial system go into meltdown, the choice is stark.
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