BAD HARDWARE WEEK

In the past eight years, investment in hedge funds soared from $500 billion in 2000 to nearly $2,000 billion today, according to Hedge Fund Research (HFR). The smaller rise in the previous decade - from $38 billion (1990) to $500 billion (2000) - gives a guide to just how rapid the recent expansion has been.

The number of funds also grew exponentially. The last HFR report put the total at 10,000. Some of these traded in stocks and bonds, others were in currencies and arbitrage, but they all shared one common goal: to make money - or at least not lose money - when markets fall.

LATEST: $700B fed financial package secretly enlarged to$2000B.

Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.

The Fed made the loans under terms of 11 programs, eight of them created in the past 15 months, in the midst of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

BECAUSE, YOU VOTED for it. TWICE in a row.