eddie has done what many australians have done which is gambled...

eddie has done what many australians have done which is gambled on his success / good luck by leveraging on paper gains. i did the same thing on a much smaller scale last year ended up getting burnt in August, cut my losses , learnt my lesson and live to fight another day. i would bet at one stange Eddie had substantial so called "equity" in his company shares and used these paper gains to buy further shares without putting in any of his own funds. unfortunately for many australians ( including Eddie ) they have learnt or will learn the hard lesson that the only pure form of equity is realised/retained profits. Gambling your prosperity on rising asset prices is a very risky proposition as these assets will all go through cycles and eventually fall. Eddie may bounce back but my fear is for other Australians who are highly geared into the property or stock markets - will they bounce back ?