Harold Maass of The Week The Best of Today's Business

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Central banks man the cash pumps

With the U.S. bailout plan stalled, central banks around the world pumped billions of dollars into money markets today, to try and ease a drought in lending. The European Central Bank and the central banks of England and Switzerland injected $74 billion in U.S. dollars, and Japan and South Korea's central banks also put up cash. (Reuters) The U.S. Federal Reserve boosted the amount of dollars it can lend to foreign central banks, to $290 billion. (CNNMoney.com) Government bond yields also rose. "It's gloomy because the bailout package was seen as the cavalry coming over the hill,'' said Richard McGuire at RBC Capital Markets in London. (Bloomberg) Oil, on the other hand, fell below $105 a barrel on the bailout doubts. (AP in Yahoo! Finance)

Washington Mutual falls, JPMorgan pounces

Federal regulators took control of Washington Mutual, in by far the largest bank failure in history. JPMorgan Chase agreed to buy almost all its assets, which total $307 billion, for $1.9 billion; JP Morgan will absorb at least $31 billion of soured mortgages and credit card debt. Washington Mutual depositors won't be affected, but its shareholders and some bondholders will lose their investment. (The New York Times) Washington Mutual depositors withdrew $16.7 billion since Sept. 16. JPMorgan is now the largest U.S. bank, by deposits. (Bloomberg) JPMorgan CEO "Jamie Dimon is clearly feeling that he has an opportunity to grab market share, and get it at fire-sale prices," said Matt McCormick at Bahl & Gaynor Investment Counsel. (Reuters)

RIM has good quarter, expensive future

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion posted strong quarterly earnings, with a 72 percent jump in profit, to $495.5 million, and an 88 percent leap in sales, to $2.58 billion. However, its shares dropped 19 percent in extended trading on warnings that a jump in marketing spending, to push holiday sales of a new line of BlackBerrys, will crimp profit margins. (The Wall Street Journal) "Apple is really pushing the envelope and now RIM is responding with higher-quality displays and touchscreens," said JMP Securities analyst Samuel Wilson, and that's pushing up costs. RIM added 2.6 million subscribers in the quarter, easing fears that it will be hit hard by trouble in the BlackBerry-dependent banking sector. (BusinessWeek.com)

Small, and loving it

Smaller banks across the U.S. must have missed the memo about the credit freeze, as they continued making loans like normal. In fact, while total bank borrowing from the Federal Reserve rose to a record $262 billion last week, some local banks said they were benefiting from the troubles at their larger rivals. Depositors and qualified loan-seekers are turning to their community banks, apparently looking for relative safety and stability. "We collect money from local savers, and we lend it in the local community," said William Dunkelberg, the chairman of Liberty Bell Bank in Cherry Hill, N.J., and the chief economist for the National Federation of Independent Business. "We're doing fine." (The Washington Post)

BEST COLUMNS OF THE DAY

A pound of flesh, then a bailout

Henry Paulson is asking for $700 billion, and Congress should say yes, says Charles Krauthammer in The Washington Post. And while it should demand oversight, Congress should also forgo "window dressing" like executive pay caps and give Paulson "a clean rescue package that will actually save the economy." It's not like Paulson, a lame duck, is doing this for "self-aggrandizement" -- he "peered into the abyss" and doesn't want to take us there. There was some "Wall Street malfeasance," yes, and while the raging mob is not blameless in this mess, it is understandably angry. So maybe, to get a deal, we need some "catharsis," like televised "exemplary hangings" of a few CEOs. The ad revenue could go toward paying down the $700 billion.

A bailout, then jail time

Punishing some of the frauds responsible for this mess (through criminal trials, not public hangings) is a great idea, says Brett Arends in The Wall Street Journal. "But that's not going to help the rest of us now. Nor is plunging the economy into a depression." We are at the end of a huge debt bubble and "facing a massive financial implosion." How massive? Look at the U.S. in 1929 and Japan in 1989. Neither country acted quickly enough, and the U.S. got the Great Depression and Japan "20 years of stagnation." If lawmakers don't like the plan, they can amend it -- "just saying they don't like the one on the table isn't enough." But for the sake of "every American worker and saver," they need to act.

GOOD DAY FOR: Frosty receptions, after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals urged Ben & Jerry's to use breast milk, rather than cow's milk, for its ice cream, to ease the suffering of dairy cows. Ben & Jerry's, and the breast-feeding advocacy group LaLeche League International, politely said no. Customers were less polite. "It's kind of creepy," said Ohio customer Jeff Waugh, 42. (AP in Los Angeles Times)

BAD DAY FOR: Avoiding a crash, as frustrated San Diego residents can now visit Sarah's Smash Shack to vent their ire. The Smash Shack, owned by former veterinarian Sarah Lavely, consists of soundproof rooms where customers throw breakable objects, like plates and wine glasses, against stainless steel walls. "We had no business model to follow," Lavely says. (CNNMoney.com)

NOTED: The former top five Wall Street firms -- Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, and Bear Stearns -- paid their CEOs a combined $3.1 billion between 2003 and 2007, when the banks were buying up the assets that led three of them to implode. In those same five years, the five firms reported a combined $93 billion in net income. In 2007 alone, the firms paid their 185,687 employees $66 billion, including $39 billion in bonuses. (Bloomberg)

This column was written by Peter Weber and edited by Harold Maass of TheWeek.com.