Loose change

Well, it sounds like money is going south everywhere this week. I just read the headline about the $187,000 worth of nickels that got scattered all over the highway when a truck carrying the money crashed. How many nickels would that be?

Okay, I can multiply: 3,740,000 nickels to pick up. That will take a lot of finger work. With luck, they were all wrapped in those paper money containers. Still, I wonder how many fingers it will take to pick up all those nickels.

Well, today I'm kinda operating on loose change, a little here, a little there, a little of this, a little of that.

First, I must comment on comments. Thirteen of them appeared on my copper piggy-bank blog the day before yesterday. After reading each response, I learned that the Republicans, the Democrats and the people in the mirror are responsible for our present mega-financial disasters. Of course, I must comment.

I heard a sound byte on TV the other day from a three-piece suit "in the know." He said that from now on, our loaning institutions are going to engage in a policy of loaning only to people/entities that can demonstrate the ability to pay back the loan.

Duh! What a novel thought!

What guideline other than the policy mentioned above has been followed to cause this mega-banking catastrophe? Have I been in a vacuum since Bill and I had to provide practically our entire life story the last time we filled out a loan application from the credit union to purchase the Jimmy?

Seems to me that two parties--the borrower and the lender---have been at fault in this. Unfortunately because those two parties multiplied many times over add up, just like the nickels, their complicity has caused the rest of us--- who pay bills, pay back sensibly-sized loans, pay taxes, avoid over-extending ourselves and put away a few nickels here and a few nickels there---to lose on our investments.

It's somewhat puzzling to folks like me why we have to pay and lose because of the lunacy and greed of a whole bunch of people we don't even know or want to know.

When I look at the investment pittance I've been watching grow steadily over the past six years, thanks to PERSI and my own deposits, suddenly start going backward, I go look in the mirror and wonder what I did to cause this. Somehow, no answers come yapping back at me.

When I look at Democrats and Republicans playing the blame game rather than taking time out from their superficial squabbling to unite---like really sincere leaders should---and say let's drop the bickering, roll up our sleeves and see how to solve this problem, I get disgusted.

The candidates should jump on this situation as the ideal opportunity to show that they're really made of the right stuff for steering our country forward rather than further into the depths of despair.

I find it hard to believe that we have to wait until we elect someone to lead the country beginning in January, 2009, four months from now, to solve a problem as critical as this financial mess we keep watching unfold almost overnight.

And, as I watch the brilliant people in the three-piece suits keep putting band aides on an exploding wound, it seems to me that blame, blame, blame isn't gonna do a lot to help anyone right now---not even candidates wanting win the Presidency. Just more salt in an already sore wound.

My suggestion: show that you really give a damn about the American people's future as well as your own: demonstrate some real hard-core, unified leadership, if that exists any more.

And, as far as those people who took on loans far beyond their means, I'm thinking our education system needs to have more influence in teaching these people the hard facts of math. How many nickels do I need to pay back if I borrow $5, 378,122, 089.33 at 21 percent interest on my salary of $12 per hour. Seems like that might be a good start.

Okay, that's enough on that. More loose change:

On a positive note, my daughter is heading for Boston tonight on the Red Eye flight, and would you believe that she has a coveted ticket to a Red Sox game Monday night! Annie's going back there for her job. Over the weekend, she's going on a hike to the state's highest peak---2,900 feet.

She promises to call us from the baseball game, so we're excited, and we know she's pretty stoked about the entire experience. By the way, she's got some new photos on her blog http://www.nnlove.blogspot.com/ from her Labor Day visit here when she and her dad climbed Pend Oreille Peak.

I've worn myself out, griping in the upper level of this post, so I guess that's all the loose change I'll be scattering today. Good luck with your nickels. As for me, I think I'll go find me a bunch of coffee cans and start filling them up with coins, maybe even bury them out behind the barn-----far away from the screwdrivers!