205 yeas...228 nays....1 not voting. Second vote is tentatively scheduled for Thursday. In the interim both parties are making efforts to garner the 13 votes necessary to pass the bill. The markets in Tokyo, Seoul and Hong Kong opened without enthusiasm this morning even before the vote was taken. The New York exchange has been a roller coaster ride up and down between the bulls and bears....declined by 777 points at the close.

An economist interviewed on CNN indicated that the 700 billion will not be enough to loosen the credit market, and estimated that the figure needed to cure the problem would be closer to 2 trillion dollars.