When I was a child, I went to junior high school with a fellow I'll call Marcus. He was a likeable guy, a great musician, and a prodigious joke-teller. Although he was not poor by any means, he was terribly broke on a regular basis.

He just liked to show off with money and he gambled. He was constantly asking to borrow money from me, and I often obliged. As far as I can recall, he never once, not even once, repaid me.

Time passed. I went off to college in New York City. Marcus went off to college in California and I rarely heard from him. But every once in a while he would write an affectionate note, always ending with a plea that I lend him money...

Ben Stein (Yahoo Finance): ...