Congress passed the massive and hard-fought legislation, and Bush signed it. The government raised the amount of bank deposits it insured. Billions of dollars of reserves have gone into banking systems in the U.S. and other countries. Yet credit, the economy's lifeblood, has remained virtually frozen.

This paralysis in the credit markets has translated into intense turmoil in the stock markets. The Dow Jones industrial average just completed its worst week in history, plummeting more than 18 percent. Over the past year, people in the U.S. have watched $8.4 trillion drain from investment accounts and retirement savings.

So the administration decided to use the bailout bill to pump equity directly into the banks — an idea never mentioned during the congressional debate. The administration says it is authorized in an obscure corner of the 400-page legislation.

Officials are not saying how long it will take to get this program under way — just as is the case with the even more complicated effort to buy mortgage-backed securities.

Bush seemed to acknowledge that the lag is feeding anxiety on Wall Street. "These extraordinary efforts are being implemented as quickly and as effectively as possible," Bush said. "The benefits will not be realized overnight."

The White House session with Bush followed a three-hour meeting Friday night of G-7 finance ministers. The president largely echoed their terse statement, saying the nations have together pledged to "do what it takes to resolve this crisis."

Among their promises are preventing the failure of major banks, unfreezing credit markets, bolstering deposit insurance programs, getting the battered mortgage financing system to operate more normally and working with poorer but fast-growing nations that also are feeling the pinch.

To address this last pledge, Paulson scheduled a meeting Saturday evening of the Group of 20 countries — which include the G-7 plus the world's biggest developing countries such as China, Brazil and India — to explain recent actions by the U.S. and other wealthy allies.

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said she saw the discussions as a way to help emerging-market countries understand actions by wealthier nations so they can be included in solutions and "if they wish, adopt the same principles."

All the representatives are in Washington for weekend meetings of the 185-nation International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

In a briefing for the IMF's policy-setting board, Paulson said that after the immediate crisis "we must turn our attention to longer-term reforms to modernize our outdated financial regulatory structure."