Markets stampede lower; global finance chiefs meet

Markets stampede lower; global finance chiefs meet Stock markets plummeted still lower on Wall Street and around the world Friday despite all efforts to slow the selling stampede. The globe's industrial powers urgently debated even more forceful actions to prevent a worldwide economic catastrophe. In Washington, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke met with their counterparts from the world's six other richest countries as a rout of financial markets showed no sign of letting up in the face of dramatic rescue efforts in the U.S. and abroad. Stock prices hurtled downward in the United States, Europe and Asia, even as President Bush tried to reassure Americans and the world that the U.S. and other governments were aggressively addressing what has become a near panic. "We're in this together... [read full story]