Now this is a good conversation!

I personally think half the time we talk ourselves into recession.. Psychologically induced hysteria.

When we lend, we require collateral.

In the past, some of the investment positions we have taken have come with performance guarantees, which allowed us to sell our position back if our expectations were not met or exceeded.

Rather than just buying stock, I buy the appropriate stock, and then sell covered call options. This gains income even if the stock price declines.

We can sometimes tell that an enterprise will fail should something catastrophic happen to key personnel, so for some of the investments we've made, we've required that the enterprise obtain "Key Man Life Insurance" for certain principals as a condition of our investing.

If there is a risk in a deal, there usually is a way to hedge that risk.

In addition to investing I also gamble, but I don't delude myself into thinking that one is the other.

As an Investor, the first thing I look at is the ROC ("Return Of Capital"). If a deal passes that test, the next thing I look at is the ROI ("Return On Investment"), which is generally a measure of relative efficiency.