Governments are hosing down the markets with bailout money. Central banks, meanwhile, are making sure the cost of borrowing is as close to zero as possible. We smell another bubble in the making…and another inevitable crash. Talk about priming the pump for the next bout of excessive exuberance.

Leon Cooperman is one of the best living investors. He’s the founder of Omega Advisor, a $4.5 billion hedge fund based in New York.

According to Leon, “This is the most difficult environment I’ve lived through. And I’ve been doing this for 41 years.”

Capital & Crisis editor Chris Mayer caught up with Leon at a value investing conference recently. Cooperman presented Atlas Pipeline (NYSE:APL) as one of his favorite ideas of the moment — a pick Chris previously recommended to Catital & Crisis readers.

“In my view, the oceans of new fiat money will chase scarce assets: energy and resources,” says Dan Amoss in The 5 Min. Forcast. “It will stave off the deflationary depression scenario, but not re-inflate the credit/housing bubble. This means the biggest reversal in resource stocks in history is likely soon.

One of the biggest collapses this year hasn’t been in stocks. Crude oil has lost half its value since it peaked at just under $150 a barrel in July. Today, a barrel of the black goo sells for just over $80.

Outstanding Investments co-editor Byron King says “it seems like the investment locomotive — energy, resources and related infrastructure — has derailed.”

Does this mean you should sell your resource stocks? Byron says selling now would leave a lot of value on the table. That’s because resource stocks are now priced well below their intrinsic value.

Since mid-2007, 81 hedge funds have imploded. Another 34 are in trouble.

“No matter how you cut it, it’s been a rough year for the hedge fund industry,” says J. Christoph Amberger, editor of Today’s Financial News.

These funds may soon be forced to sell off their assets – many of which are commodities.

J. Christoph says this have a market-flooding effect… and weigh heavily on commodities prices.

– Another day another bailout. At 6:30pm yesterday evening on Capitol Hill the government’s plunge protection due Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke announced to lawmakers a plan to plunge $85 billion of taxpayers’ money into insurer AIG (NYSE:AIG) to prevent it from going under. In return, the government will take a 79.9% stake in the company.

– Interests of taxpayers “protected,” according to Fed statement. “Loan is collateralized by all the assets of AIG.” “Loan is expected to be repaid from the proceeds of the sale of the firm’s assets.” 

– “The US government will receive a 79.9 percent equity interest in AIG

The carnage on Wall Street can be put down to two toxins: leverage and greed. This was the view of Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) chief Ken Lewis, speaking on CNBC yesterday.

In other words, says Eric Fry at Rude Awakening, Wall Street could have avoided the whole mess by applying some restraint and foresight. It didn’t.

The lesson to be learned from Wall Street’s hubris, says Eric, is that although stocks can be ruined by over zealous management, commodities cannot. Stupidity is not a risk factor in the commodities sector. And this makes them attractive despite their recent selloff.  

Crude oil prices are nudging $100 a barrel today. That’s a long way down from oil’s summer high of $147 a barrel.

“It has been a brutal couple of months for commodities investors,” says Dan Amoss in Rude Awakening.

But it’s the type of wild swing that opens up a great profit play for contrarian investors. Whereas prices this summer overshot fundamentals, prices now look like they may overshoot to the downside.

But commodities will take off, says Dan, when the feds cut rates again…

“Price developments change very quickly on commodities markets these days,” says Gabriel Andre. Just look at oil. Pushing at $150 a barrel this summer, the black goo is now down towards $100 a barrel. Gabriel says copper prices are also in bearish territory and are likely to fall further…

Oil expert Byron King says it is a credit to years of investment that the oil infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico survived a direct hit from Hurricane Gustav relatively unscathed. But the real story is the lack of any real fundamental support for the recent dollar rally. Byron says this rally can’t last forever. That is why energy, precious metals and resources will bounce back in the long term.