In my next blog post, we will talk about assessing the ability to bear risk.

FORBES: Risk: Are You Willing?

The last thing I kind of add to that is: The ability to bear risk is an asset.

FORBES: Does Your Investment Plan Consider Risk?

Markets have already tested the ability of the weakest governments to bear the burden of their debt.

ECONOMIST: Markets

The wildlife broadcaster Chris Packham acknowledges that a polar bear in captivity loses the ability to relate to bears in the wild.

BBC: Knut: A polar bear story

The most important thing to remember is that when it comes to risk, willingness and ability to bear it are not the same thing.

FORBES: Risk: Are You Willing?

Amid a sea of rumors, firms stopped trusting the Bear's ability to repay, and the bank collapsed.

FORBES: What We Learned From Bear

Lord Turner warns that the process of businesses, households, banks and the government trying to cut their big debts built up in the boom years, what is known as deleveraging, may bear down on the British economy's ability to grow for many years yet.

BBC: Turner: Time for helicopter money?

Meanwhile, the ability of the Japanese market to move independently of other markets demonstrated by its decline into a bear market, has continued as the Japanese market has been virtually the only global market to make further gains over the last ten days while most other markets sold off.

FORBES: Buy Japan

The benefits remain, not least the increased ability of households to smooth spending over their lifetimes and of markets to allocate risks to those most willing to bear them (see article).

ECONOMIST: The world economy