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They fell from some of the most powerful positions on earth.

In Pictures: 11 Top Bosses Who Got The Boot in 2008

The bloodletting in the c-suite started in 2007. It still hasn't stopped.

Another year goes by and more chief executives get the ax--probably more than in any previous year. People shook their heads when Charles Prince III at Citigroup (nyse: C - news - people ) and Stanley O'Neal at Merrill Lynch (nyse: MER - news - people ) got the boot in 2007. Now it look like they were lucky. They got out just in time.

Martin Sullivan of American International Group (nyse: AIG - news - people ) (let go in June), Kerry Killinger at Washington Mutual (nyse: WM - news - people ) (September) and Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers (nyse: LEHMQ - news - people ) (leaving next month) are among the biggest names to be shown the door as a result of the economic crisis.

Their distinguished company includes James Cayne of the now-deceased Bear Stearns and Richard Syron and Daniel Mudd, the former CEOs of the mortgage buyers Freddie Mac (nyse: FRE - news - people ) and Fannie Mae (nyse: FNM - news - people ).

"There are two kinds of CEO firings," says Noel Tichy, a professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. "There are the crooks and there are the incompetents." This year the biggest departing names all fell into a gray area in between.

None was as corrupt as the executives embroiled in the infamous Enron and Tyco scandals of a decade ago, but you couldn't just say they were simply stupid either. CEOs in the financial services industry discovered that they had allowed their companies to take suicidal risks with other people's money based on bad or staggeringly incomplete information. Many of them have paid with their jobs.

In Pictures: 11 Top Bosses Who Got The Boot in 2008

Despite their prominence, these headline names compose just a small fraction of the 1,361 U.S. CEOs who left their jobs this year through November. That's up from 1,356 in all 12 months of last year. The final 2008 number may prove to be a record, beating the previous one of 1,478 set in 2006, according to data collected by the management consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Mortgage rates are falling as this week's dramatic action by the Federal Reserve provides a boost to the dismal housing market, but the nation's unemployment rolls are stuck at historically high levels amid a deepening recession.

Mortgage giant Freddie Mac (nyse: FRE - news - people ) on Thursday reported that rates had fallen to the lowest level on records dating back to 1971. Average rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages dropped to 5.19 percent, down from the year's previous low of 5.47 percent, set last week.

Jobs data from the government, while better than expected, was still sobering. The Labor Department on Thursday said its tally of initial jobless benefit claims fell to a seasonally adjusted 554,000 from an upwardly revised figure of 575,000 the previous week. The new tally was slightly below economists' expectations of 558,000 claims.

Another slight improvement was seen in the number of people who continue to receive jobless benefits, which declined to 4.38 million from 4.43 million the previous week. Economists expected a slight increase to 4.45 million.

Still, claims remain near the highest level since 1982, though the labor force has grown by about half since then.

And the cuts continue. Water treatment and storage systems maker Pentair Inc. (nyse: PNR - news - people ) said Thursday that it will cut more than 10 percent of its work force, or about 1,600 jobs, due to a faster-than-expected drop-off in demand and consumer spending. One day earlier, hard drive maker Western Digital Corp. (nyse: WDC - news - people ), managed-care company Aetna Inc. (nyse: AET - news - people ), and Newell Rubbermaid Inc. (nyse: NWL - news - people ), maker of products including Rubbermaid storage containers and Sharpie pens, announced mass job cuts.

Meanwhile, President-elect Barack Obama is laying the groundwork for a giant economic stimulus package, worth possibly $850 billion over two years, which Democratic congressional leaders say could be passed within two weeks of Obama taking office.