"It’s mid-October, and the Wall Street bailout that was supposed to save the economy from collapse is a flop... Senate passage came on Thursday, Oct. 2...President Bush signed the $700 billion Wall Street bailout into law... Despite all the media hype about how the bailout measure would quickly steady the stock market, it fell and kept falling. Over the next week, ending Oct. 10, the Dow made history as stocks plunged by 18 percent in five trading days. And what about the ostensible main reason for the humongous bailout in the first place — unfreezing the credit markets? Well, in spite of the enormous media outcry for the bailout to get credit flowing, it didn’t. And the key economic factor in the recession — housing — remained just as stuck as before."