by Laura Conaway

A lot of listeners have been sending in this from Bloomberg, "U.S. Pledges Top $7.7 Trillion to Ease Frozen Credit." The headline more or less says it all, but what the heck — here's the intro graph:

The U.S. government is prepared to provide more than $7.76 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers after guaranteeing $306 billion of Citigroup Inc. debt yesterday. The pledges, amounting to half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, are intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up 15 months ago.

Emphasis mine.