In the final hour, this market went from a bear to an angry bear.

The Dow lost nearly 679 points, or 7.3 percent. The Nasdaq lost another 5.5 percent, and the S&P dropped 7.6 percent.

Here's what happened:

• Plans to consider taking equity stakes in banks, plus hints of massive capital injections follow a $700 billion rescue package and a half-point rate cut in the last two weeks. Nationalization of some sort becomes likelier by the hour. Bottom line: The government has done everything possible to get credit markets functioning again. They are not.

Today's unprecedented decision by the world's central banks to cut interest rates around the globe is exactly what the market needs. Unfortunately, it looks more like admission of what's going wrong in the global financial system than a true solution.

Panic selling on Monday and Tuesday that sent the Dow below 10,000 was caused by consensus on Wall Street that the government's $700 billion bailout plan simply didn't address fears that the credit crisis is spreading like wildfire outside of America's borders. That hasn't stopped. If anything, it's gotten worse this week. Banks simply aren't lending. Investors are willing to hide out in treasuries even though they're offering no return.

The Fed is buying up commercial paper and is now hinting at an interest rate cut.

So what's the Dow doing?

Falling. Again.

As of midafternoon, stocks appear to be headed for a fifth straight day of losses.U.S. officials called for a "forceful and coordinated" reaction to the crisis after the Dow fell as much as 800 points Monday and ended the day below 10,000.

Maybe the losses continue because no matter what kind of bailout plan is put into place, investors are finally waking up to some harsh economic realities. As Bernanke put it:

"All told, economic activity is likely to be subdued during the remainder of this year and into next year. The heightened financial turmoil that we have experienced of late may well lengthen the period of weak economic performance and further increase the risks to growth."

Yesterday, we looked at 5 Bad Signs for a Dow Below 10,000. A day later, not much has changed.

September spawned a monster. More of the credit-crunched, bailout-braced financial system gave way again today, following one of the worst months in Wall Street's memory.

The Dow fell more than 800 points Monday, dropping below the 10,000 mark for the first time since 2004 as global markets suffered their worst day in years while the credit crisis spreads. Shares recovered later in the day to end down about 350, but the damage still resulted in a 3.5 percent drop in the Dow and a whopping 4.3 percent fall in the Nasdaq. The systemic crisis in the U.S. banking sector is now a worldwide phenomenon.

If the single largest job of the government's $700 billion bailout plan was restoring confidence in the markets, it may already have failed.

Another Monday-morning massacre is slamming Wall Street today after traders around the world woke up to banking problems in their own backyards and saw little reason to hope for immediate help from America's newly inked bailout plan.

Stocks are plummeting across the globe today as the credit crisis spreads to the rest of the world.

Late Friday, the House voted 263-171 to pass the $700 billion bailout for the financial sector by a comfortable margin, just days after rejecting an earlier bill, capping one of the most unsettling weeks in Wall Street history. Reports from Congress had markets guessing up to the final minutes before the vote.

What changed:

Congress got an earful. Swooning markets and angry constituents lined up to back an imperfect plan imperfectly, if earnestly, offered up by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. From the NYTimes:

Speculating about Steve Jobs's health was a full-time occupation this summer, and today the Internet scrutiny moved Apple's share price.

A report from CNN's iReport, a citizen journalism site with the tag line "Unedited. Unfiltered. News," ran a headline saying Jobs was rushed to the hospital after a heart attack.

Apple spokespeople say it's not true. The story has been pulled from iReport. (Silicon Alley Insider was on this early today.)

The International Monetary Fund surveys the world economy and outlines some examples of when financial turmoil turns into economic damage. America could be its poster child for the worst-case scenario.

Not all episodes of financial stress lead to economic slowdowns (that only happens about half the time), but when banking-sector problems do stunt growth, the pain lasts longer. How much longer? "In particular, slowdowns or recessions preceded by banking-related stress tend to involve 2 to 3 times greater cumulative output losses and tend to endure 2 to 4 times as long," the IMF says.

Apple (AAPL) isn't immune to worries about consumer spending. With its shares off more than a third over the last month, and yesterday's 18 percent drop on this week's spate of new analyst downgrades, it looks like most parts of the business are feeling the pinch.

Here's a rundown of the latest analyst opinion:

Morgan Stanley: PC shipments show a shift to cheaper sub-$1,000 computers, away from Mac's higher price point. Some 70 percent of Mac sales are above $1,500. Lower iPhone and Mac orders were also a problem. Morgan cut its rating to equal weight from overweight.

Opponents of the stalled $700 billion bailout plan keep tossing out charges of "creeping socialism" as a legitimate reason to block the bill. (We're looking your way, Senator Bunning.)

Merrill Lynch says the pain caused in the credit markets could mean more government intervention, even a Swedish-style bank takeover.

This from Michael Hartnett, Merrill's emerging markets equity strategist:

The Good Looking Swedish Model

The failure of TARP legislation worsens the short-term credit situation. But in so doing it increases the likelihood of a Swedish-style recapitalization of the banking sector in the US. This chemotherapeutic event marked the September 1992 equity low in Sweden. In stark contrast, the Japanese preference for the morphine of a "Price Keeping Operation (PKO)" at exactly the same time condemned Japanese equities to a multi-year bearish trading range.

"Idiots, idiots, idiots. You just guaranteed a recession."

That's Jeff Saut, chief investment strategist at Raymond James, who, like many market watchers, is furious at Congress's latest failure to pass the proposed $700 billion bailout for the financial sector. The House of Representatives rejected the measure 228 to 205.

Credit markets seized up, and stocks plunged on the news of the worst possible outcome today for an already dysfunctional Wall Street.

Sunny pundits were chanting a special number over the past few months: 3.3 percent.

That's how fast the economy grew in the second quarter from a year ago. Except it didn't. Today, revisions to the data show gross domestic product grew more slowly, at an annualized 2.8 percent rate. Upward momentum is welcome, but there are lots of worrying signs. Gross private investment fell 11.5 percent, accelerating from a 5.8 percent decline in the first quarter. The biggest revision was consumption—1.7 percent from 1.2 percent—which bodes poorly for the current pace of consumer spending.

A couple of points from Bank of New York currency strategist Michael Woolfolk:

Here's a list of the top 10 bank failures of all time from Reuters. WaMu is No. 1.

1. Washington Mutual of Henderson, Nev., and Park City, Utah: Seized September 25 with $307 billion in assets as of June 30.

2. Continental Illinois of Chicago: Collapsed in 1984 with $40.0 billion in assets.

3. First RepublicBank Corp. of Dallas: Failed in 1988 with $32.5 billion in assets.

What sort of week would it be without a massive failure in the financial system?

Washington Mutual's failure, seizure by the government, and subsequent $1.9 billion fire sale to JPMorgan Chase & Co. could hardly come at a worse time.

As Congress, the White House, and regulators continue to dither over the proposed $700 billion bailout, the decline and fall of another of America's most storied lenders is a road map for how this crisis will continue to unfold until some sort of relief is offered up (though a bailout still won't stop the damage in its tracks).

Here are a few highlights from President Bush's brief speech this morning. (Below is pretty much the entire thing; it was less than five minutes long):

We need a rescue plan.

We've got a big problem.

We also need to move quickly.

There is no disagreement that something substantial must be done.

The legislative process is sometimes not very pretty, but we are going to get a package passed.

Not pretty and hardly reassuring. The speech does nothing to comfort markets. They're lower today, with bank stocks leading the way down.