aardwolfe,
Interesting thoughts, sounds like your uncle handled it pretty well. It must have been a bit awkward for a while until he was able to negotiate a happy medium.
IIRC Ben Franklin was not overly prone to lending large amounts of money, typically stating something along the lines of, if I make a number of small loans and tell the borrower to repay me by making a subsequent small loan to someone else in need, then I've helped many more people that if I make larger loans to fewer people.
It's been several years since I read that, and I don't recall the exact quote, however the general gist is evident. Actually, I've used this a couple of times and it seemed to be acceptable.
Pay it forward...interesting concept, the movie ending had pretty mixed emotions involved (happy/sad).
Comanche7