long period of steady growth and low inflation -- and a huge build-up of debt. Subsequent research showed that the collapse in the equity risk premium in the 1990s could be explained by the perception that the Federal Reserve was unwilling to ever let investors take their lumps. Ironically, Mr Greenspan's successor at the U.S. central bank, Ben Bernanke, has been even more aggressive at doing whatever it takes to goose risky asset prices, although one could argue that the circumstances he faces now are different than those faced by Mr Greenspan between 1987 and 2006. The most sophisticated financial players are well aware of the generous safety net provided by the Federal Reserve and, according to two stories from yesterday's papers, they are eagerly returning to the unsafe and destructive practices of the go-go years. Yesterday's Wall Street Journal contains a detailed article on the return of one of the private equity industry's most unsavory behaviors: Private-equity firms are adding debt to the companies they own in order to fund payouts to themselves, a controversial practice now reaching a record pace...In these deals, known as "dividend recapitalizations," private-equity-owned companies raise cash by issuing debt. The proceeds are distributed in the form of dividends to buyout groups. The resurgence has been helped by investors' appetite for high-yielding debt at a time of historically low interest rates. Debt issued to fund private-equity dividends has topped $54 billion this year, after a flurry of deals earlier this month, according to Standard &