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Today’s momentous decision to pump £50bn of taxpayers’ money into the troubled banking sector came after government ministers and bank officials thrashed out the details of the plan into the early hours of the morning.

The £50bn bail-out is equivalent to £2,000 for every taxpayer in the UK, and analysts warned today that the public will “foot the bill” for the plan. The government is also now offering to lend £200bn to the sector – much bigger than previously thought – as short-term loans in an attempt to thaw the frozen interbank lending markets, plus a further £250bn to guarantee bank debts.

This has triggered safe-haven buying on ongoing worries about the world financial system, as well as buying as a hedge against potential inflation down the road as a result of easier monetary policy, traders and analysts said.

Around 8:40 a.m. EDT (1240 GMT), December gold was up $32.80 to $914.80 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. December silver was 54.5 cents higher at $11.925.

Gold was higher in overnight screen trading and remains firmer after initial volatility when the news broke that the Fed cut its federal-funds rate by 50 basis points to 1.5%. Others cutting rates included the Bank of Canada, Bank of England, European Central Bank, Sweden’s Riksbank and the Swiss National Bank.

There was no sign Wednesday that the Syrian troops were preparing to cross the border. Syria says the deployment — first made public several weeks ago — is aimed at preventing smuggling from Lebanon.

But the United States and some anti-Syrian politicians in Beirut have warned that Syria could attempt an incursion, a concern raised especially after a Sept. 27 car bombing in Damascus killed 17 people.

The Fed said it was cutting its key federal funds rate by 50 basis points to 1.5 percent. China, the European Central Bank (ECB) and central banks in Britain, Canada, Sweden and Switzerland also cut rates in the coordinated response which analysts had been demanding.

“Incoming economic data suggests that the pace of economic activity has slowed markedly in recent months,” the Fed said in a statement.

“Moreover, the intensification of financial market turmoil is likely to exert additional restraint on spending, partly by further reducing the ability of households and businesses to obtain credit.”

World stock markets cut heavy losses after the move.

Russia’s Micex Index dropped 14 percent, having already slumped 20 percent this week, before trading stopped at 11:05 a.m. in Moscow. The exchange won’t reopen until Oct. 10 unless the Federal Financial Markets Service says otherwise, Micex spokesman Alexei Gerasyuk said by phone. The Jakarta Composite index fell 21 percent in its biggest weekly slump in at least 25 years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The upheaval that has engulfed financial firms and sent the stock market plummeting is also devastating people’s savings, forcing families to hold off on major purchases and even delay retirement, Peter Orszag, the head of the Congressional Budget Office, told the House Education and Labor Committee.

Just days after the federal government committed $85 billion of taxpayers’ money to a bailout of insurance giant AIG last month, senior execs from the troubled company headed to Southern California’s ultra-swanky St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach for a week of wining and dining top salespeople.

“They had a conference here,” resort spokeswoman Kristi Turek confirmed Tuesday, “but we don’t get into details of what they did during that time.”

As it happens, congressional investigators released AIG documents earlier in the day showing that the company paid more than $440,000 for the event, including nearly $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for meals, $23,000 in spa charges and almost $7,000 for golf outings.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index nose-dived 952.58 points to 9,203.32, a five-year low. That was its third-biggest drop in percentage terms and the largest plunge since October 1987.

Toyota’s shares fell nearly 12 percent on concerns about its earnings amid a slump in the vital U.S. car market.

The massive sell-off in Tokyo follows a sharp retreat on Wall Street Tuesday, when the Dow Jones industrial average lost more than 5 percent despite steps by the Federal Reserve to reinvigorate dormant credit markets.

“Selling on Wall Street triggered further selling in Tokyo. It’s like a chain reaction,” said Kazuhiro Takahashi, general manager at Daiwa Securities SMBC Co. Ltd.

“No one knows the bottom of the ongoing financial crisis, and investors were really spooked by growing uncertainty over the global credit crisis,” he said.

Selling accelerated as investors were pessimistic that the finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven industrialized nations would announce any effective measures at their meeting in Washington on Friday to tackle the global financial crisis, Takahashi said.

“Investors were taking a wait-and-see approach over the upcoming meeting, but today’s massive selling indicated that they were not so hopeful for concrete action by the G7,” he said.

Operating earnings for the quarter that ended in September declined to between $600 million and $675 million, or 83 cents to 93 cents a share, the New York-based company said today in a preliminary statement. That compares with year-earlier results of $1.16 billion, or $1.52 a share.

“Given the current volatility, the company is withdrawing its 2008 earnings guidance,” MetLife said. The company will report full results on Oct. 29.

MetLife is writing down its $350 billion investment portfolio as the biggest housing slump since the Great Depression pushes down the value of fixed-income and equity holdings. The insurer, led by Chief Executive Officer Robert Henrikson, was stung by losses related to investments in hedge funds and private-equity firms as well as its stakes in failed companies including Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Washington Mutual Inc.

The company announced plans to sell 75 million shares in a public offering to raise capital amid the financial crisis. The offering may be priced tomorrow, MetLife said in a statement.

MetLife tumbled $7.45, or 17 percent, to $36.87 at 4 p.m. today on the New York Stock Exchange as credit concerns pushed the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to its lowest since 2003. MetLife shares have dropped 48 percent in the past year.

More Defaults

Chief Investment Officer Steve Kandarian predicted in June that more companies would default on their debt as the economy slows. MetLife cut its investments in airline, carmaker and homebuilder bonds, and sold commercial mortgages at a loss in the second quarter to reduce risk.

Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., the Connecticut- based life and property-casualty carrier, said yesterday it would raise $2.5 billion in capital. Insurers plunged in New York trading this week on concerns that investment losses could erode capital.

The largest insurers in the U.S. and Bermuda have posted more than $80 billion in writedowns on mortgage-related holdings as subprime home borrowers fail to repay their debts. Insurers invest premiums before paying claims.