So you know how the Fed "bailed out" AIG with $80+ billion and now everything is okay? Right, it's not okay at all. The $80+ billion allows the failed insurance giant an "orderly liquidation" of its assets. AIG is done. That is just one of the reasons why the markets continue to collapse today -- the Dow's down 240 at the moment, or 2.16%, the NASDAQ's down 3.2%, and the S&P 500 is down by 3%. Oh, and the last remaining American investment housestook huge hits, again. Morgan Stanley dropped by thirty-freakin'-seven percent, this morning, and Goldman Sachs fell more than 20%. But what's the bad news?

• "The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., whose insurance fund has slipped below the minimum target level set by Congress, could be forced to tap tax dollars through a Treasury Department loan if Washington Mutual Inc., the nation's largest thrift, or another struggling rival fails, economists and industry analysts said Tuesday." [AP/Yahoo]
• "The government doesn’t have the $85 billion needed to bailout insurance giant American International Group. The treasury department announced this morning it would auction new debt to raise funds for the Federal Reserve’s rescue plan for AIG." [CBS News]
• "Russia halted stock trading for a second day, poured $44 billion into its three largest banks and relaxed restrictions on lenders to stem the worst financial crisis since the nation defaulted a decade ago." [Bloomberg]
• "One of the original and largest money market funds has put a seven-day freeze on investor redemptions after the net asset value of its shares fell below $1, in a rare instance in the fund industry of what is called "breaking the buck." [MarketWatch]