My good friend Frank writes:

Josh,

Thinking about the current financial crisis/bailout predicament, I noticed that you've begged off in your blog from weighing in. I thought it strange until I remembered something you'd said to me perhaps 200 times before:

"In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,
I shot his fellow of the self-same flight
The self-same way with more advised watch,
To find the other forth, and by adventuring both
I oft found both: I urge this childhood proof,
Because what follows is pure innocence.
I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth,
That which I owe is lost; but if you please
To shoot another arrow that self way
Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,
As I will watch the aim, or to find both
Or bring your latter hazard back again
And thankfully rest debtor for the first."

If you remember, that didn't end very well. I was heavily invested in overseas contracts and you convinced me to leverage myself even further (deregulation had laid the way for exotic, organ-backed securities). Ships are but boards, sailors but men and when I lost all three ships, I had an instant liquidity crisis. If the judicial system hadn't been biased against predatory lenders (and had I not enlisted a knowledgeable corporate legal team) I would have lost everything.

Lucky thing, that.