Please, stop sending me *direct letters* asking me to send money to your
favorite charities.  I am not speaking of the public requests, and I am
not speaking of those charities which we have a history of giving to.  I
am speaking about letters sent directly to me from parties other than the
charities themselves, most of which are asking us to give to charities
which we do not have a history of giving donations.
 
I have begun getting a pile of direct mails from some ferret people
requesting donations to all sorts of ferret things and sometimes more.
Why, I don't know.  If I had the money to give I already would be doing
so.
 
Since we have been feeling bad enough over the last four years about
our changed circumstances which make it impossible to even give to some
of our favorite charities that we once gave to generously it is painful
when people remind us by asking us also give to others.
 
Let me be frank here, the Labs had a generous pension system when Steve
joined it which was because members usually were not permitted to publish
outside the Labs (a rule that cuts down on employment opportunities
except when someone else who is originally from the same company knows
the person's work), so we should have been fine despite the Labs going
away since Steve was with them for 20 years and because we also have
been doing without to save on our own for our future.
 
But you know the pension regulations changes that happened during the
Reagan and Bush 1 administration years -- the same ones that lost Enron
workers their pensions by letting companies reinvest them, and another
which allowed a company hold back part of the pension and then the
purchasing company to get to keep it if the original company sold, and
another which allows medical insurance to be stopped despite the original
contract, oh, and the one that has the medical insurance purchased from
the pension money the company holds back?  Well, the first one took away
2/3 of our pension, and we will be hit by the middle 2 at points during
2006.  The final one has applied for 4 years now but next year, well,
see the middle two...
 
Thank goodness we were never as badly hit as those with a number of
other companies, and thank goodness we are younger than many of them.
A friend's father worked 35 years for a company that was bought by Enron
a year (?) or a few years (?) before Enron folded.  Jim's dad lost his
entire pension -- all of it -- because of those same changes in pension
regulations that have hurt us.  That is truly terrible, especially at his
age.
 
Instead of taking your time to mail me to ask for money that we can't
give could you, please, either do something of your own labor to directly
help that charity which is dear to you, and help your own future by
working to once again make pensions safe for people in the U.S.?  People
are just starting to get a feeling for what those changes mean to U.S.
workers by seeing what they do to others like us so you may as well work
to change them back to the way they were before those two presidencies to
protect yourself.
 
Don't worry about us.  We are okay because we have always lived modestly
for the most part and saved (with a few rare splurges for spice in life
-- since even moderation needs moderation to not be obsession), but we
have a heck of a lot more saving to do to get back to where we would have
been by now if it wasn't for pension regulation changes and will be
having to work for a great many years more than we had planned.  So we
have no choice except to be tight with a penny because when a chunk of
money that large which had been part of what was supposed to exist as
reimbursement for long, hard work disappears like that a huge number of
things in life change.
 
We can no longer give very large amounts to charities, just some to few
core ones of our own choosing.
 
As a result, please, stop writing to us to ask us to donate to all of
your favorite charities.  Your mails on that score are not welcome here
nor useful to anyone when sent here.
 
Since they obviously mean a great deal to you I hope that you find a way
to directly help them more yourself.  It can be done; I provide labor
pretty much every day changing things for the better with the IFC, and
working through the FHL and when time allows also the FML to help those
with ferret health questions so those are other ways to give to the
ferret community when the usual route isn't feasible.  There are a lot of
ways to help others beyond causing great discomfort by asking people to
give away money they don't have.
 
-- Sukie (not a vet)
Ferret Health List co-moderator
http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ferrethealth
FHL Archives fan
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
replacing
http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org
International Ferret Congress advisor
http://www.ferretcongress.org
[Posted in FML issue 5077]