Saudi Arabia, Yemen's largest patron, has cut off payments to tribal leaders.
As a result, Maliki's government is the largest patron of economic development and, many say, the biggest obstacle to it.
"It's how the political system has worked for years," said Bruce McWilliams, whose wife, Sarah, has become Deeds's largest patron.
Established religious themes dominate, which is understandable given that the Roman Catholic Church was the largest patron of the arts in Europe until the 18th century.
If this becomes a common enough complaint, theater owners may need to build larger seats for their larger patrons (thus driving ticket prices even higher).
The idea is to save larger patrons the inconvenience and humiliation of being turned away from the ride while attempting to board after waiting in line for a long period of time.
Congress appears reluctant to impose stricter standards on the accounting profession, an industry that is among its largest political patrons, despite public and presidential expressions of outrage over the failure of auditors to warn investors of the perilous condition of Enron before they lost tens of billions of dollars.
Once the largest individual patron of New York's Guggenheim Museum, Lewis withdrew financial support and resigned from its board in 2005 after publicly disagreeing with museum management.
The Medici family, who ran Europe's largest bank, were patrons to some of the greatest Renaissance artists, including Leonardo, Brunelleschi, Botticelli and Michelangelo – all of them Tuscan artists who built their careers in Florence.
Still, it attracted a large number of patrons.
