Imagine you have $2,000 saved. You could knock on doors to find a small business that needs a loan, negotiate a contract, watch over it carefully, and hope you get your money back—and if the business fails, you lose everything. Most of us never do that. Instead, we put money in a bank, buy a mutual fund, or pay an insurance premium. This chapter explains why we rely on financial middlemen so much and how they make the process safer, cheaper, and more efficient than we ever could on our own.