Lender of Last Resort

As of late last week, central banks in the EU, the US, Japan and Canada have begun claiming their mantle as a lender of last resort, pumping lubricating liquidity into financial markets (at least some $120B of it) to put a break on an impending credit crunch. The coming weeks will reveal more. (John Authers speaks about it here. He calls it "very dangerous times" and speaks of a potential "melt-down" and hopes that this injection of liquidity can push back the tide of "bad news.")