I recently had a conversation with a friend in the trade who owns and has run a profitable business for the past 30 years. Like almost everyone in the industry, he's having a difficult year. His bank is unhappy that his sales, receivables, and inventory are out of compliance with his loan agreement. As a result, the bank wants to call his loan and end their 25-year relationship with his firm. Not long ago the taxpayers of the United States were treated to a series of financial bailouts that first were directed to the financial community because of questionable loans made by some banks encouraged by programs of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and the U.S. Congress. We were told we had a liquidity crisis and that the taxpayers needed to step to the plate to stabilize the situation in order to get banks lending again. Since that point in our history, U.S. taxpayers have