There was a chance that this week would mark a turning-point in an ever-deepening global slump, as Barack Obama produced the two main parts of his rescue plan. The first, and most argued-over, was a big fis-cal boost. After a lot of bickeringrnin Congress a final compromise stimulus bill, worth $789 billion, seemed to have been agreed on February nth; it should be only days away from becoming law. The second, and more important, part of the rescue was team Obama's scheme for fixing the financial mess, laid out in a speech on February 10th by Tim Geithner, the treasury secretary.
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