A DAILY round-up of economic news:

Here is where the rubber meets the road. The House of Representatives will take up the compromise $700 billion bailout bill today, where it will face the Republican lawmakers that initially threw negotiations into chaos late last week. One interesting new inclusion in the bill not mentioned yesterday—if after five years the programme has suffered net losses, it is the president's responsibility to come up with a way to recover those losses from Wall Street. So far, markets don't seem especially excited about the bill, but it's difficult to know how much of market reaction is uncertainty over the proposal's passage.

After determining on Saturday that Bradford & Bingley could not continue as a solvent deposit-taking institution, the British government nationalised the lender. Spanish bank Santander was a part of the deal, swooping in and purchasing the failed bank's £20 billion or so in deposits for a cool £612 million. The government, on the other hand, paid £4 billion to protect consumer deposits and will pay £14 billion to assist the asset transfer to Santander.

Who else is receiving a bailout today? Why, Fortis, the Belgian financial firm, of course. Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands will all chip in to a rescue package totalling €11.2 billion. Each nation will purchase a roughly 49% stake in their respective Fortis banking division. Markets had battered Fortis shares last week, after losing confidence in the financial wherewithal of the company, a rather familiar story.

And Wachovia, only a week or so removed from talks of a purchase of Morgan Stanley, is now the subject of acquisition speculation. Federal authorites have been encouraging a partnership for Wachovia, which is unlikely to successfully weather the credit crisis alone. Citigroup and Wells Fargo are the top candidates at this time. A purchase of Wachovia by either would create a financial titan, joining Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase astride the new banking landscape. At the moment, the Federal Reserve is not taking measures to financially facilitate a purchase.