“What news on the Rialto?” For the financial players of the Merchant of Venice, the shipping news was about gains and losses in the accounts of the parties concerned (pounds of flesh excluded). Double-entry bookkeeping to track market transactions was standard Venetian practice long before Shakespeare had Salanio and Salarino discussing nautical finance in Act One. Centuries later, double entries were extended to national income by John Maynard Keynes (1940) in his pamphlet on How to Pay for the War.