When being rich is enough to warrant getting gifts so that you can stay rich, relative to the non-rich, then the notion of risk has surely been purged from the very core of our so-called Capitalist economic system. Let those who have made bad speculative bets suffer their own demise. Its the way things are supposed to work.

Instead, we get this crap . . .

Central banks' good intentions may have backfired

The European Central Bank, Federal Reserve and Bank of Canada all signalled their willingness to come to the aid of financial markets.

And so they should, because that's part of their job.

But in seeking to calm the jangled nerves of investors, they may have inadvertently made a bad situation worse.

Not that they had much choice in the matter.

Faced with a credit squeeze that pushed overnight interest rates sharply higher, the European Central Bank injected $130-billion (U.S.) into the banking system. Underlining the severity of the problem, it was its biggest cash infusion yet, and about 37 per cent more than it provided the day after 9/11.

The great World Hedge Fund game is going to come unraveled no matter what you do. It is elementary economics. It is Bubble Gum economics, first you blow then it pops and sticks to your face.