I was just thinking the other day that if anyone wanted to take over America, they would just have to cut off our coffee supply. Can you imagine an entire population of un-caffeinated people? It would be complete anarchy.

I had this realization about lenders/borrowers too a few years ago and joined Lending Club. It's a peer-to-peer lending program, so I can be the lender. You can invest as little as $25 into each loan that goes out (so if the person defaults, the most you lose is $25) and you get to decide which people you want to loan money to (ie. how risky). I like being the bank, not the borrower :)