I wrote an article this afternoon for TIME.com. It begins: By voting down the proposed $700 billion financial bailout package — and causing a spectacular stock market rout — a majority of members in the House of Representatives made a clear statement that they didn’t want to put taxpayers on the hook for the failures [...]

The most popular story on reuters.com right now–ahead of Lawmakers reject bailout plan–is Heather Locklear arrested in California. That’s probably just because the Locklear story has been on the site a few hours longer, but I nonetheless find it strangely encouraging.

The title of the most recent research from Rasmussen Reports wasn’t quite as funny this morning before our elected representatives went to work: “Opposition to Bailout Plan Falls Dramatically.” Just a mere half-day ago the polling outfit reported: As Congress prepares to vote on a proposed economic rescue plan, opposition to the measure has declined [...]

So that was interesting. They kept the vote open for a while after time expired, but now it looks like the bailout bill is dead. Maybe they’ll try to resurrect it later this week, but I don’t really see how. What happens now? Treasury, the Federal Reserve and the FDIC can keep merging and closing [...]

We’ve heard an awful lot in the last few days about how making legislation is like making sausage. Having been involved in some actual sausage-making over the summer, I figured I ought to share this photo (that’s Curious Capitalist Jr. on the left and Mrs. CC on the right):

I just turned on CSPAN to see Illinois Democrat Bill Foster (who won a special election in March to replace retiring former House Speaker Denny Hastert) defending the bailout legislation. I didn’t catch much of what he said, just that he liked the way the AIG deal was structured (with taxpayers getting up to 80% [...]

Why are markets so down in the dumps this morning? Congress came to apparent agreement over the weekend on a $700 billion financial bailout plan, after all. Shouldn’t everybody be happy now? Well, insta-analysis of market movements is always dangerous, but it does seems pretty relevant to note that negotiations on Capitol Hill aren’t all [...]

Small businesses, apparently. I happened to be reading a summary of the National Small Business Association’s Mid-Year Economic report and came across this: Included in the report, 68 percent of small-business owners report that FDIC insurance is not adequate enough to insure their business accounts, and nearly two-thirds have already or are considering taking action [...]