Stimuli

As President Obama acknowledged our "perfect storm of financial problems," Congress finally agreed on a $789 billion stimulus bill this afternoon. "'The differences between the House and Senate versions, we’ve resolved,' Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, said in a Capitol news conference," the New York Times reports. "'The differences were resolved by a lot of intense 'give and take,' Mr. Reid said, 'and if you don’t mind my saying so, that’s an understatement.'"

Meanwhile, Secretary of the Treasury Timothy F. Geithner appeared again before the Senate Budget Committee and stressed, “We believe the policy response has to be comprehensive and forceful and that there is more risk and greater cost in being gradualist and tentative than there is in aggressive action.”

And up in Boston, regulators revealed that Bernie Madoff's wife withdrew $15.5 million from two brokerage accounts just before he was arrested last December 11.