A White House plan for a 700-billion-dollar bail-out for the financial sector was finally signed into law on Friday night, after a week of frantic negotiations to reverse a veto just days before. Lawmakers passed the legislation amid dire warnings that the US economy was on the verge of collapse.

The seven-hundred billion dollar bailout plan aims to get banks to start lending to each other again. Financial institutions have become paralyzed with fear. And though they have plenty of cash on hand, they've been hoarding it. Without this intra-bank lending, businesses are having trouble getting the financing they need even for daily operations, much less loans for longer-term projects.

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