Meeting in Luxembourg amid calls for a more coordinated response to the crisis, the ministers failed to come to terms on any broader proposals beyond raising the deposit guarantee from the current 20,000 Euros ($27,000).

The ministers, representing the 15 countries that use the Euro, said in a statement that they would continue monitoring the situation and coordinate their individual responses. The EU nations "all commit to take all necessary measures to enhance the soundness and stability of our banking system and to protect the deposits of individual savers," the statement said, the Associated Press reported from Luxembourg.

The increase in deposit insurance across the Eurozone replaces a patchwork of guarantees that emerged after Ireland acted unilaterally last week, creating a sense of confusion surrounding Europe's country-by-country response to the crisis.

There have been calls for even more significant action on the part of the Eurozone countries, but some nations -- most notably Germany -- have been hesitant to join in a common response.

As the ministers met, the crisis continued to ripple through the financial sector both inside and outside of the Eurozone.

Iceland nationalized Landsbanki, the nation's second largest bank, pegged its plummeting currency to the Euro, and announced it was negotiating with Russia for a loan. Prime Minister Geir Haarde was quoted by the BBC as saying the steps were needed to avoid "national bankruptcy."

In Moscow, officials announced they would make an additional $36 billion available to bolster Russian banks after a previous bailout efforts proved unable to restore confidence in the country's economy.

Media reports in London, meanwhile, indicated that the government was preparing an emergency plan to invest nearly 45 billion pounds ($80 billion) of public funds into several large banks -- news that sent U.K. bank shares tumbling.

The EU action followed one of the worst days ever on world stock markets amid fears that government responses to the global financial crisis, including the U.S. bailout and inconsistent moves by European leaders, would not be sufficient to prevent a worldwide recession.

The day opened with heavy losses in Asia and the Middle East, followed by record losses in Europe and sharp drops in Latin America before the closing bell finally sounded to end another dismal day on Wall Street.

Central banks continued to pump billions of dollars into money markets in hopes of unlocking seized-up credit markets. The Bank of England will inject an additional 40 billion pounds, equivalent to about $70 billion, on Tuesday, according to Alistair Darling, Britain's chancellor of the exchequer, or finance minister.

The Federal Reserve said today it is establishing a special fund to lend money directly to businesses so they have adequate cash to operate, a major move by the central bank to ensure that "main street" companies are not crippled by the financial crisis gripping Wall Street and other money centers around the world.

Under the new program, the Fed will buy up commercial paper, the short-term debt that large companies across the country use to fund their day-to-day operations. That puts the Fed in the unprecedented position of, in effect, funding individual companies by buying their debt.

The "Commercial Paper Funding Facility" will be a special entity, funded by both the Fed and the Treasury Department, that will purchase three-month notes issued by corporations. It will include debt backed by specific assets, but also will make unsecured loans. Entities that sell unsecured debt to the new entity will have to pay a fee to account for the higher risk.

After a day of sharp losses, Wall Street market futures turned higher on hopes that the Fed announcement will help ease a credit crisis in which banks and financial firms have become hesitant to lend, and companies have worried about raising the money needed to pay their bills.

Problems in the commercial paper market have been one of the most direct ways in which the financial crisis has threatened to affect the nuts and bolts economy.

With financial markets in near-meltdown, governments around the world have been scrambling to find new ways to infuse vast amounts of cash into banks and even directly to companies to help resuscitate the global financial system.

The Fed yesterday said it would push $900 billion into the U.S. banking system, a six-fold increase in its program of lending money to banks.

The measures followed similar efforts by other central banks and governments around the world over the weekend and yesterday to get financial institutions to stop hoarding money and start lending to one another and to their customers.

It wasn't enough. Stock markets began a steep tumble in Asia, where most national markets were down considerably, and then declines accelerated in Europe on fears of new bank failures. The French stock index tumbled 9 percent, the German index dropped 7 percent and the British benchmark index fell nearly 8 percent. Russia was off nearly 20 percent.

In the United States, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 3.6 percent, closing below the 10,000 level for the first time since 2004. It had been down nearly twice that at one point before staging a late rally.

With the financial crisis now engulfing most of the developed world, a meeting scheduled for later this week in Washington of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank will probably turn into a summit that could provide a forum for coordinated action.

But there was little sign of coordination among European leaders, who could not agree over the weekend on a common approach to the crisis and who yesterday bickered over what sorts of protections they would offer investors and institutions.

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- A man distraught because he could not find work shot and killed his mother-in-law, his wife and three sons and then killed himself inside a home in an upscale San Fernando Valley neighborhood, police said.

Police outside a home where an unemployed father is believed to have killed his sons, wife and mother-in-law.

Authorities said the man had an MBA in finance but appeared to have been unemployed for several months and had worked for major accounting firms, such as Price Waterhouse, police said.

The two-story rented home is in a gated community in Porter Ranch, about 20 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

The shootings were discovered after 8:20 a.m. Monday, after a neighbor called police officers to report that the wife had failed to pick her up to take her to her job at a pharmacy, Deputy Chief of Police Michel Moore said.

Ed Winter, assistant chief from the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office, identified the suspect as Karthik Rajaram, 45.

He said the victims included Rajaram's mother-in-law, Indra Ramasesham, 69, and his 19-year-old son Krishna Rajaram, a Fulbright Scholar and honor student at UCLA.

Also dead were Rajaram's wife, 39, and their two other sons, 12 and 7. Some of the victims had been shot more than once and their identities were not immediately confirmed, he said.

"Due to the nature of their injuries, it's been a little difficult," Winter said. There were no signs of struggle, he said.

Police first found the mother-in-law shot in her bed in a downstairs bedroom, Moore said.

Upstairs, the couple's eldest old son was shot in the master bedroom; the wife in another bedroom with a gunshot wound to the head; the two younger sons in the bedroom they shared, both shot in the head. The 12-year-old was on the floor and the 7-year-old in bed, Moore said.

The suspect was also in that bedroom, a gun still in his hand.

The killings are thought to have occurred after 6 p.m. Saturday, when the man was last reported seen, Moore said.

Inside the house, police also found three letters, one to law enforcement acknowledging responsibility for the killings, a second to friends and relatives and a third that appears to be the suspect's will, Moore said.

"He attests to some financial difficulties, and he takes responsibility for the taking of the lives of his family members and himself as a result of those financial difficulties," Moore said.

Neighbors, family and friends told police that the suspect, who had not worked for several months, had said in recent days he was having had extreme financial difficulties, Moore said.

One of the letters, intended for friends and marked "personal and confidential," detailed his financial transactions that resulted in "an unfortunate, downward spiral," Moore said.

"His narrative is one of talking about this tragedy befalling him and his contemplation of an available exit or solution," Moore said. "One is taking his own life and the other is taking the lives of his family and himself. ... He talked himself into the second strategy, believing that was in effect the honorable thing to do."

Moore said the several-page narrative appeared to have been written over a period of time. "This was something that was not a spur-of-the-moment type of event," he said.

Moore said it was clear to police that the family members were close and "had an affection for each other." He said the parents had given up their master bedroom to their eldest -- who was spending the weekend home from college -- "out of respect."

"This is a perfect American family behind me that has absolutely been destroyed, apparently because of a man who just got stuck in a rabbit hole, if you will, of absolute despair, somehow working his way into believing this to be an acceptable exit."

No neighbors reported having heard gunshots, and there was no sign of forced entry at the house, Moore said.

Rajaram was involved in a financial holding company as part owner "at least," Moore said.

There is no evidence he had had any history of mental difficulties, nor was there an indication he had sought counseling, Moore said.

Neighbor Trish Harrison, who lives three houses from the crime scene, said the family had lived in the community for about a year, but kept to themselves and had little interaction with neighbors. The parents were from India, she said.

The Los Angeles Unified School District was making arrangements for crisis counselors to visit the schools attended by the two younger sons.