That blunder almost bankrupted Ashanti, scared off creditors and ultimately forced Mr Jonah into the arms of his South African buyers.

ECONOMIST: A giant digs deeper for African gold

To summarize my recent New York City trip: almost all of the hedge fund types I visited are both long stocks for the short term, and really scared for the long term.

FORBES: It'd Take A Miracle For Markets To Survive The Mess The Central Bank Manipulators Created

Professor LUIGI ZINGALES (Economics, University of Chicago): If you got scared, basically had a bad system in place, you got hit by a major shock, you almost sort of got killed, you got a second chance to live, you're not ready to go back to operation as nothing had happened.

NPR: Why Haven't Credit Problems Been Resolved?