Easy credit?

Today's slushy news:

Libor Rises Most on Record After U.S. Congress Rejects Bailout

Bloomberg, By Gavin Finch, September 30

The cost of borrowing in dollars overnight rose the most on record after the U.S. Congress rejected a $700 billion bank-rescue plan, putting an unprecedented squeeze on the global financial system.

The London interbank offered rate, or Libor, that banks charge each other for such loans climbed 431 basis points to an all-time high of 6.88 percent today, the British Bankers' Association said. The euro interbank offered rate, or Euribor, for one-month loans jumped to a record 5.05 percent, the European Banking Federation said. The Libor-OIS spread, a gauge of the scarcity of cash, also increased to an all-time high.

``This is unheard of, the money markets should be the engine driving the financial system but they have broken down,'' said Kornelius Purps, a fixed-income strategist in Munich for UniCredit Markets and Investment Banking, a unit of Italy's largest lender. ``Any institution that hasn't completed its 2008 funding needs by now is going to be in very serious trouble. More banks are going to need to be bailed out.''

The seizure in the credit markets is tipping lenders toward insolvency, forcing U.S. and European governments to rescue five banks in the past two days, including Dexia SA, the world's biggest provider of loans to local governments, and Wachovia Corp. Money-market rates climbed even after the Federal Reserve yesterday more than doubled the size of its dollar-swap line with foreign central banks to $620 billion. In Europe, banks borrowed dollars from the ECB at almost six times the Fed's benchmark interest rate today.