I count six such episodes since August 2007. In the early days, the Federal Reserve Board did all the work and usually made its big announcement on a Friday. Since then, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has moved to the fore, and he picked a Sunday afternoon to float his proposal for bolstering beleaguered mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The basic pattern, though, remains the same: FINANCIAL TIZZY. DRAMATIC GOVERNMENT ACTION. PERIOD OF REDUCED TIZZY. REPEAT.

IS THIS CYCLE EVER GOING TO END? It has to someday, although at this point only a fool or a psychic would dare predict when. The more important question may be, What does it all mean for people without Bloomberg terminals and subscriptions to the Financial Times?

Washington's response has so far shielded the economy from the worst of the catastrophe in financial markets. BUT IT HASN'T FIXED THE PROBLEM THAT STARTED THE CRISIS: THE FACT THAT A FEW MILLION AMERICANS GOT HOME LOANS THEY CAN NEVER PAY BACK. The resulting foreclosures have been driving housing prices down and forcing lenders to retrench. The result is less credit for heavily indebted American consumers. The likeliest next step, while not the Great Depression, is a recession that even Gramm will have to concede is more than just mental. Which could lead to a few more emergency meetings of the men in dark suits.

Rep. James Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat who chairs the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said a stimulus package could include "accelerating" payouts of $9.5 billion from the federal trust fund assigned to road construction and maintenance. "You can have 700,000 people working in three months. We should have done it this spring," Oberstar told Reuters in an interview.

If approved, the funding would go to more than 2,600 projects, he said. States would receive full federal funding and then have a few years to pay back any matching funds. Oberstar gave a list of spending possibilities to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week, who "likes the idea."

Democrats are considering supporting another economic stimulus measure to revive the economy after Congress approved a $152 billion measure in February, which taxpayers received in the form of checks during the spring and early summer.

The UN World Food Programme says it urgently needs $400m (£200m) to prevent starvation in the east African region. Ethiopia is worst hit, with 10 million people - some 12% of the population - in need of extra food supplies. Somalia, Eritrea and Djibouti are also affected, along with northern parts of Kenya and Uganda.

Economic events outside Africa - which are driving up food and fuel prices - are exacerbating the crisis caused by a lack of water in the region. Ethiopia has nearly exhausted its food reserves, the government having used stocks already in the hope that food prices would fall, making it cheaper to replenish its stores. Instead, costs have risen further.

More expensive fuel means the costs of transporting and distributing food have soared, and the WPF says the local price of grain is nearly three times higher than it was a year ago. It says the current food shortages are worse than two years ago, when 11m people needed food aid.

More than half a million requests for highly personal communications data, such as records of private telephone calls and e-mails, were also lodged by councils and law enforcement agencies. Snooping by local authorities has now become so widespread that a Government watchdog has threatened to strip councils of their powers to spy on people, and Gordon Brown has ordered an inquiry into the rapid increase in the use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa).

It is the latest in a string of controversies surrounding Ripa, which in one case earlier this year was used by a council to mount a covert surveillance operation on a family who had been wrongly accused of breaking rules on school catchment areas. Opposition MPs said the new figures showed evidence of a "CREEPING ORWELLIAN STATE", while the Chief Surveillance Commissioner, Sir Christopher Rose, said some councils were guilty of using Ripa in a "disproportionate" way.

Ripa was originally brought in to help police and the security services combat serious crime and terrorism, but in recent years nearly 800 public bodies have been added to the list of organisations allowed to use the Act to carry out covert surveillance and intercept personal communications.

"Both are in very serious shape and the markets reflect that," Altman, the creator of the Z-score mathematical formula that measures bankruptcy risk, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. The model shows that these companies are "on the verge of bankruptcy," he said.

The Z-scores for GM and Ford give both a bond rating equivalent to a CCC ranking, though GM is in slightly worse condition than Ford, Altman said. GM reported a $38.7 billion loss in 2007, the biggest in its 100-year history, and hasn't posted a profit since 2004. The scores are based on the companies' finances at the end of the first quarter.

"He should resign for the sake of the church," Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul told reporters at a once-in-a-decade summit of Anglican leaders. "GOD IS NOT MAKING A MISTAKE CREATING ADAM AND EVE. HE WOULD HAVE CREATED TWO ADAMS IF HE WANTED," HE SAID.

A quarter of the world's Anglican bishops have boycotted the Lambeth Conference in an angry war of words between conservatives and liberals over the ordination of Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the 450-year-old church's history.

"We are for the Anglican world and we want the Anglican world to remain united," the Sudanese archbishop said. "Over 300 bishops have stayed away from this conference because of Gene Robinson," he added. "The norms of the Anglican communion have been violated."

Companies including Sara Lee, Kraft Foods, and Kellogg's will be passing price increases along, according to the report which said that Sara Lee, maker of Jimmy Dean sausages, could push meat prices up by as much as 20% later this year.

Kraft Foods said it will raise prices by 12-13%, and that cheese could go up by as much as 25%, according to the report. KELLOGG'S SAID THAT PRICES ON ENERGY AND GRAIN WERE DRIVING ITS PRICES UP. If Kraft Foods, ConAgra, Tyson and Kellogg's raised prices, it would only contribute to inflation in the U.S. Following flooding in the Midwest, crop prices have soared and supply has become a major concern.

Food prices have increased more than 5% since June 2007, according to the Department of Labor. The increase in food prices in the month from May to June was 0.8%, almost three times as much as the increase from April to May, which was 0.3%. Prices on meat soared to a 22-year high in June. This is attributed to rising prices for corn, oil and soybeans.

A number of major U.S. companies who rely on consumer spending warned about their results on Monday evening, including credit card company American Express Co, Macintosh computer and iPod maker Apple Inc and cruise ship operator Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. The breadth of the warnings, which also came from makers of chips and carpets, MAY SIGNAL THAT THE CREDIT CRISIS IS QUICKLY MOVING BEYOND HOUSING AND BANKS AND INTO MAINSTREAM CORPORATE AMERICA.

"It's understandable that the U.S. consumer would be apprehensive with the circumstances - weakness in housing, gasoline is up, the stock market is down and job insecurity," said Brian Gendreau, an investment strategist in New York for ING Investment Management Americas. "We may actually have a consumer-led recession - which is rare." The wrath of the credit crunch and housing collapse of the past year has largely been felt by middle- or lower-income people. But Monday's results reflected a broadening of fears.

American Express executives said that even customers with solid credit scores were facing difficulties and even the very affluent have in some cases cut back discretionary spending.

The world's biggest mobile group by sales was hit by consumers delaying buying new phones, sending its shares to a 20-month low and wiping about 10 billion pounds ($20 billion) off its market value. "WE ARE BEGINNING TO SEE AN IMPACT FROM THE CURRENT ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT WHICH IS GREATER THAN WE EXPECTED," outgoing Vodafone Chief Executive Arun Sarin told investors and analysts on a conference call.

Collins Stewart analyst Mark James said telecoms companies had shown remarkable resilience to date to the macro-economic slowdown, but Vodafone had kicked off the telecoms results season with a reminder that nobody was immune.

The two companies also plan to work together in the clean energy and water, aviation, and oil and gas sectors, they said. "This partnership is consistent with our global growth initiatives and builds on our long-term relationships in a high-growth region like the Middle East," said Jeff Immelt, chief executive of GE, the second-largest U.S. company by market value.

The companies said Mubadala "plans over time" to become one of the Fairfield, Connecticut-based company's ten largest shareholders, by acquiring shares in the open market. They also aim to establish a clean energy technology center in Masdar City, a new city in Abu Dhabi that aims to be carbon neutral. GE plans to commit up to $50 million for Masdar's second clean-tech fund.

The carrier said its second-quarter net loss amounted to $567 million, compared with a profit of $263 million, a year earlier. US airlines have been punished this year by skyrocketing fuel costs that have outpaced a series of fare hikes that began in 2006. Carriers are responding with sweeping cuts to capacity and staff.

US Airways, which previously announced capacity cuts to offset its fuel bill, said on Tuesday it would reduce its fourth quarter and 2009 capacity by an additional one to two percent. That brings total capacity cuts to 4 percent to 6 percent for the fourth quarter and for 2009.

Profit from continuing operations declined to $655 million, from $1.04 billion a year earlier, the company said today in a statement. "BY ALMOST ANY MEASURE, THE U.S. ECONOMY AND BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT ARE MUCH WEAKER THAN THE ASSUMPTIONS" the company had in January, Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Chenault said today in a conference call. "Unemployment rates took the largest jump in over twenty years. Home prices declined at the fastest rate in decades and consumer confidence is at one of its all-time low points."

The U.S. economic slowdown worsened in June, affecting even American Express's wealthier cardholders with high credit scores, Chenault, 57, said in the call. Late and uncollectible loans were higher than expectations in the quarter and will rise as the year progresses, Chenault said. The U.S. lost 62,000 jobs in June, the sixth straight period of shrinking payrolls.

Wachovia Corp lost $8.86 billion in the second quarter, and said Tuesday it was slashing its dividend and cutting 6,350 jobs after losses tied to mortgages soared. Even excluding one-time items, the results substantially missed Wall Street estimates, and shares sank to mid-1991 levels in premarket trading.

"These bottom-line results are disappointing and unacceptable," Chairman Lanty Smith said in a statement. "While to some degree they reflect industry headwinds and weaker macroeconomic conditions, they also reflect performance for which we at Wachovia accept responsibility." The nation's fourth-largest bank by assets says it lost the equivalent of $4.20 per share in the April-June period. In the same timeframe last year, the bank earned $2.34 billion, or $1.22 per share.

Wachovia has been suffering from its 2006 acquisition of Golden West Financial Corp. The bank paid roughly $25 billion for the California mortgage lender known for exotic loans. The so-called "Pick-a-Payment" loans, which Wachovia inherited from Golden West, have proved a headache for the bank and a lightning rod for shareholders, defaulting at higher rates than other mortgages.

The assessment from David Blanchflower, a member of the Bank's interest rate-setting committee, would mean about £55,000 being wiped from the value of the average home, currently £180,350. At this level, house prices would return to the levels of 2003, a disaster for many who have bought in the last few years.

House prices have already fallen 8.6 per cent since January, cutting the price of the average home by nearly £17,000. Professor Blanchflower's prediction in a newspaper interview is one of the most pessimistic about the fate of house prices. His position as one of the nine individuals who decide interest rates each month means it will be taken seriously.

That is - unless you own a £10m mansion - Earlier this year Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal bought Kensington Palace Gardens in West London for £70million. In the super-prime sector, house prices are still going up, jumping 6.8 per cent since the start of the year. About 80 per cent of the buyers are foreigners, according to Knight Frank, with a quarter coming from Russia.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are currently in possession of, or have insured, over 5 trillion dollars worth of mortgages, a good portion of which are nothing but toxic waste, have imploded and will now be nationalized in the most egregious example of moral hazard in the history of the world.

As this socialism for the rich transpires, IndyMac Bank has gone up in smoke. This is the second largest bank failure in US history and the largest such failure in over 23 years. Adding insult to injury, 10% to 20% of the FDIC's insurance reserves have just gone up in smoke along with IndyMac just as the hundreds, and what may eventually turn out to be thousands, of bank failures that are anticipated get started in earnest. What does that leave for future failures if only one bank failure wipes out a fifth of the FDIC's reserves?

Next up on the chopping block may be Downey, First Federal, Wachovia and Washington Mutual, which are not small fry by any means. Mattresses and freezers may soon be the savings vehicles of choice for those who can't afford a home safety vault as Depression Era mentality becomes the psychology du jour. WE ARE TOLD ALLOWING THE SYSTEM TO DEVOLVE INTO CHAOS IS NOT AN OPTION. WHAT THEY FAIL TO TELL YOU IS THEY HAVE NO GOOD OPTIONS. BUYING TIME IS NOT GOING TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM.