The passing of the $700 bailout bill into law hasn’t exactly turned things around on Wall Street. So with the Dow Jones industrial average plummeting, Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, announced today that interest rates will be cut by half a percentage point.

The New York Times’ Keith Bradsher, Edmund Andrews and David Jolly report that the move was coordinated with rate cuts by the European Central Bank and other banks around the world. A U.S. economist is quoted as writing “at last a coordinated show of force…the move is to be applauded.” But can this post-post mortem move stave off a recession?-MB

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