Bad judgement. Poor choices. Delusions of grandeur.

Annie and Goldman Sachs are two peas in a pod.

Spending above your means. Throwing good money after bad. Arrogance in the face of poor financial choices. Asking to be bailed out.

As the bible says: "What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun". Michael Jackson, Mike Tyson and countless other well-paid celebrities have made and lost fortunes due to ignoring simple mathematics and assuming economic rules were for everybody else to follow. Annie is no different. Except for the fact that she has racked up an astonishing personal debt of $24 million dollars, she is just like you and me, only much, much worse at balancing her checkbook.

While taking out a loan for $24 million dollars from Art Capital and then ignoring the terms of the loan may seem like it comes out of left field, in truth it is exactly how she has led her life. Only now, she may not be too big to fail. And the fact that Goldman Sachs helped finance the loan is the final irony in this dark drama.

Art Capital consolidated all of Leibovitz's outstanding obligations including her mortgages. She also owes money to vendors that haven't been paid for years like Zeff Design and Nicoletta Santoro. People who sold her services in good faith have waited years for payment and finally are calling in their debts.

According to the well researched article in August by Andrew Goldman for New York magazine, Leibovitz was paid $2 million per year by Conde Nast, paid $125,000.00 a day for advertising jobs and $100,000. for commissioned portraits. There is also a lot of money to be made selling her images through her gallerist. But Annie lived above her means: expensive, obsessive renovations to several homes, trips to Europe, her chef, her housekeeper, her handyman, her yoga instructor, her gardner. She bought an apartment overlooking the Seine. Her live-in nanny.

Yes, at 52 Leibovitz had a baby by sperm donar and at age 56 she had twin daughters by a paid surrogate. Her romantic partner, Susan Sontag did not encourage the baby at 52 and apparently this caused quite a distance to develop between them. In 2004 Sontag died and although several outlets blamed Leibovtiz's financial issues on an inheritance and ensuing taxes from Sontag, in fact Sontags estate went to her only son. Leibovitz walked away with several personal items, that was all.

No, her financial problems lay squarely on her lifestyle. She didn't pay her taxes. She didn't pay her bills. All she had to do was sign her prints to bring more money in through her gallerist but she could never get around to showing up to sign them. In 1987 American Express offered her an ad campaign even as Leibovtiz didn't have the good credit to get an American Express card. Because of her credit issues, for a long time she was forced to deal exclusively in cash.

Enabled by such high profile players as Tina Brown, Jann Wenner, Graydon Carter and Conde Nast, Leibovitz spent and spent and spent money she didn't have and broke rules the rest of us are forced to play by. Jimmy Moffat, her agent, said he and her accountant did all they could to discourage her rampant spending but to no avail. She fired her accountant and hired a new one, Kenneth Starr, who is the man who hooked her up with Art Capital.

She claims she didn't understand the ramifications of the agreement she signed. And while nobody is claiming she is an intellectual giant, a spokesman for Art Capital points out that Leibovitz and her lawyers and financial advisors understood the terms of the deal and she signed her name five times to different documents - she doesn't get a pass.

While we might heap derision upon Martha Stewart if she were caught in this same predicament, Leibovitz has indeed gotten a pass for many years. We are not an equal opportunity jury, our culture, and Annie is just a snapshot of our gullibility and projection and fascination with megalomania. We inwardly pardon some while scorning others. Life isn't fair.

So it will be interesting to see how she handles her debt and her obligations. Her sister Paula was quoted as saying she thinks it's time for her sister to start over.

September 8th, 2009 was the day that Leibovitz was to pay off her loan. That no action was taken that day did not surprise an expert in bankruptcy, Helen Davis Chaitman, a lawyer at Phillips Nizer in Manhattan. She said that the due date of a loan can typically be the start of intense negotiations between parties rather than the end of talks.

“It’s only when those negotiations fail that someone like Annie Leibovitz would turn to a bankruptcy,” she said. Once in a bankruptcy judge’s hands, both the creditor and debtor could lose rights.

Will she be extended choices that would not be available to the rest of us? Or will she finally have to toe the financial line?