Hi, Google. You kind of failed to help me out earlier when I was asking about "how to set a global mail profile for database mail in Microsoft SQL 2005." Here's what I wish you had said: First of all, "Database mail" ("DBMail" or "Sysmail") is not the same as "SQL mail" ("SQLMail"). They're both stupid and overly complex, but DBMail is newer and slightly less stupid. SQLMail uses an installed MAPI provider on your system to send mail, which means you need such a thing, possibly Outlook. DBMail apparently ignores your MAPI provider entirely. So if you find an article that says you need to install Outlook first, just ignore it; it's not true. People keep posting articles like Why China Needs US Debt . I think most of us know enough to disregard random opinion pieces written by lobbyists, and most of us who read such an article will get a "wait, that can't be right" feeling. But what exactly is wrong? China obviously does need us, right? Or why would they trade with us? I first started to understand the problem while I was watching the Canadian federal election debates and someone (it might have been the Green Party leader) said something like, "We have to cut back on our oil exports! It's killing Canada's manufacturing industry!" ...and I did a double take. Wait. What? I had to look into it a bit before I understood. What was happening was that the increased oil prices were causing