On Monday morning, the House of Representatives rejected the so-called "bailout bill of Wall Street." It was not immediately clear why lawmakers voted against the bill.

Paul Krugman joined Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! on Friday morning. Naturally much of the broadcast centered around the ongoing financial crisis. For those who don't know, Krugman is professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University and a columnist at the New York Times.

The deal which the Senate had thought was close to a done deal earlier on Thursday fell apart on Thursday night after a meeting between Congression leaders, the Treasury Secretary --- and including both presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain.

Republicans and Democrats in both the House and Senate reported bi-partisan agreement --- in principle --- Thursday on the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry requested by the Bush administration. Both sides said they had hopes of a vote within days.

On Monday, President Bush urged Congress to move quickly and to resist the temptation to add provisions to the $700 billion bailout bill he has requested saying that such additions "would undermine the effectiveness of the plan.”

On Monday SanDisk announced a new physical music format, called slotMusic, in concert with the four major music labels: EMI Music, SONY BMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group. The new format is essentially an entire album on a MicroSD compact memory card and, according to the format's official site, retailers such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy are already lined up to stock the cards for the coming holiday season.

On Saturday, the Bush administration asked Congress for the authority to purchase $700 billion in bad mortgage assets in hopes of containing the ongoing financial crisis --- currently assailing Wall Street and financial firms, and affecting markets worldwide.

Last night the Federal Reserve announced yet another bailout, this time of AIG. The Fed has agreed to a two-year, $85 billion loan to AIG in exchange for a nearly 80% stake in the company.

U.S jobless claims shot up to its highest level in five years with first-time claims of up to 448,000.This unusual surge has been blamed on a new law which extends the number of weeks unemployed U.S. workers can collect jobless benefits.

The U.S. Federal Reserve Board members have surely lost their share of sleep over the past couple of months and they are about to lose more. Last month the Feds cut interest twice in hope of stemming off inflation and slowing the mortgage fiasco that has gotten a grip on the U.S. economy but the plan backfired.

Ed Zander, a chief executive of Motorola Inc., will step down on Jan. 1, the company said. Zander, 60, will be replaced by President and Chief Operating Officer Greg Brown as CEO.