The main point of quantitative easing, the bankers term for a licence to print money, is to encourage investment in risky assets.
It is not, as is commonly believed, simply to stimulate the economy. For the past five years or so of financial crisis everything has been a risky asset really, which is why the programme was considered a general cure-all.
So it is no surprise that the riskiest stocks, bonds and currencies were among the biggest beneficiaries of quantitative easing.
And those very risky assets are, of course, the ones that reside in the emerging markets of the world.
Once the programme caught on, emerging markets investment became something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. With their having received the biggest boost from the early days of quantitative easing, market dynamics took over and a good proportion of the world's available capital poured in to enjoy the bull market QE had created and reap rich rewards.
This headlong rush into the only class of assets that seemed to be generating a good return was indeed a welcome break from all the gloom and doom of sorting out the massive debt overhang that had crippled capital markets in more developed parts of the world.
Indeed, emerging markets were literally the least risky thing you could find while the developed markets world was getting back on its feet.
But the crown has been slipping since the start of the year. As I pointed out a couple of weeks back when the UAE was awarded emerging markets status by the MSCI index-compiling service, stocks, bonds and currencies from across the emerging markets have charted a downwards trajectory since January.
An even greater indication of the loss of faith in emerging markets of late, however, has been the fortunes of the man who came to embody the emerging markets recent bull run.
Eike Batista,the Brazilian billionaire investor and industrialist, predicted last year that he would one day have a net worth of more than US$100 billion.
Such an achievement certainly seemed plausible at the time as Mr Batista, like his native Brazil, was enjoying the fruits of the emerging markets party more than anyone else.
In March 2012, when Mr Batista made the prediction, he was worth about $34.5bn. Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi government linked strategic investment company, invested about $2bn in Mr Batista's EBX Group last year.
The turning point came when one of Mr Batista's offshore oil and gas exploration projects revealed a much smaller find than had been anticipated and that sent investors running for the door.
After that, however, the emerging markets bears took over and sucked the rest of the wind out of Mr Batista's sails.
Now, being down to your last $4bn or so is not exactly penury. But it looks like that $100bn net worth projection might be off the table for a while.
Indeed, Mr Batista is said to be in the process of selling assets, including some of his favourites such as a private jet and some personal property.
With his loss of fortune Mr Batista continues to be the poster child of the emerging markets. Of course, now he is the embodiment of the precipitous decline rather than the equally steep and rapid ascent.
It may look like nothing but dark clouds in the skies over the emerging markets of the world for the foreseeable future, but at least there is a significant silver lining.
The capital rushing out of the new world is rushing back to the old, the United States in particular.
This means that hopefully the US recovery will in the relatively short term gather the same sort of pace as the emerging markets bull run that propelled the likes of Eike Batista into the stratosphere.
And that means that maybe the end of the deepest financial crisis in a generation may finally be coming into view.
jdoran@thenational.ae