What’s the difference between an effective bluff and an ineffective one? Last year’s financial meltdown offered an example of each. In last month’s issue, we described how a bluff by then–U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson scared off potential buyers for failing investment bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008. After Paulson told Wall Street CEOs that no government funds were available for a Lehman deal—a claim he later admitted was a bluff—the firm fell into bankruptcy.