US President-elect Barack Obama has vowed to take rapid action on enacting a stimulus plan designed to create 2.5m jobs and end the economy's current 'vicious cycle' of crisis.
Watch the news conference
He also unveiled his economic team, nominating Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary and Lawrence Summers as director of the National Economic Council.
Mr Geithner, the New York Federal Reserve Bank president, and former Treasury Secretary Summers will be at the centre of the Obama administration's efforts to fight the worst financial crisis to hit the US since the Great Depression.
US stocks rallied late on Friday after news leaked about Mr Geithner's appointment.
Mr Obama also named University of California at Berkeley economist Christina Romer as the head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
He named Melody Barnes to serve as director of the Domestic Policy Council and Heather Higginbottom to serve as the council's deputy director.
At the same news conference, Mr Obama pledged to 'honour the public commitments made by the current administration to address this crisis' following another hefty bailout, this time for Citigroup.
'Right now, our economy is trapped in a vicious cycle,' he said, noting that turmoil on Wall Street was spreading far and wide.
'We do not have a minute to waste,' he said.
'These extraordinary stresses on our financial system require extraordinary policy responses,' Mr Obama said, pledging to enact his stimulus plan as soon as Congress reconvenes in early January.
