Imagine you’re the CEO of a highly-leveraged company that’s heavily-regulated by the US government and you suddenly find yourself on the phone with a US Senator who is asking for a loan, which is exactly the position Angelo Mozilo found himself in when North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad called him up (or, according to Conrad, called disgraced Obama ally Jim Johnson up and then got the phone from Johnson).

What would you do?

Such a situation doesn’t exactly leave you with a lot of good options now, does it?