– US stock index futures are up today on news of that Uncle Sam is planning on pumping $250 billion into banks.

– The Treasury says about half that figure will likely to go to buying stakes in the top nine US banks to get them lending to each other again.

– The Treasury will also consider lifting the cap on deposit insurance for certain bank accounts and guaranteeing certain types of bank lending.

– Global markets surged today. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 shot up 14.2%. It was the biggest single-day percentage gain for the index. European markets were broadly higher in midday trading. Most major indexes were up about 5%.

– Oil prices climbed above $84 a barrel. Yesterday, however, Goldman Sachs cut its year-end crude price forecast from $115 a barrel to $70.

– Gold is also up as the dollar dipped against a basket of ten major currencies. Gold for immediate climbed 1% to $841.20 an ounce as of 8:55 a.m. in London.

– US Treasuries dropped. This sent two-year yields up by the most in almost a month. According to Bloomberg, “the decline sent the 10-year yield to the highest level in 10 weeks.”

– According to Paul Krugman, the equity-stake solution now in motion is privately favored by Fed head Ben Bernanke and most economists but not by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.

This sort of temporary part-nationalization, which is often referred to as an “equity injection,” is the crisis solution advocated by many economists — and sources told The Times that it was also the solution privately favored by Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman.

But when Henry Paulson, the U.S. Treasury secretary, announced his plan for a $700 billion financial bailout, he rejected this obvious path, saying, “That’s what you do when you have failure.” Instead, he called for government purchases of toxic mortgage-backed securities, based on the theory that … actually, it never was clear what his theory was.

– Taking an equity stake in return for recapitalizing banks is also the solution advoted by former Fed chief Paul Volcker. To watch Volcker talk to Charlie Rose about fixing the financial crisis, follow this link to Barry Ritholz‘ Big Picture blog. It’s one of the best takes on the crisis that we’ve heard so far.