The Law of Unintended Consequences

"Unintended consequences", now that is a term that has been tossed around recently by the mainstream media in reference to the bailouts of the financial system. As my march to a million had a rain delay this weekend I was left gazing out of the upper-most window of the citadel at Castle Sidewalker pondering whether or not I had any of these unforeseen outcomes in my quest.

Below is the description of the law by Konrad J. Friedemann (you might have to wait for another rainy weekend if you want me to find out who this guy is!):

“the proposition that every undertaking, however well-intentioned, is
generally accompanied by unforeseen repercussions that can overshadow
the principal endeavor.”

And if you require further reading on the subject, a good place to start is this entry at Wikipedia.

I can imagine you sitting there reading this and scratching your head thinking, what has this got to do with picking cash up off the sidewalk? Well allow me to be the beacon of light in your hitherto foggy Monday morning. If you look over to the left you will see my last Twitter post has my running total at $11.66 (at the time of publishing). However, in choosing to walk (see post: Sixth Cents) in order to collect these orphaned coins, the result has been an accelerated deterioration of my footwear (twice the normal rate) and with a replacement cost of over $40 a time; well you don't have to be Einstein to see where I'm going with this...

The quest continues for now, but my frugal genes leave me deliberating the wisdom of continuing after the impact of this unintended consequence on my wallet.

-Luke Sidewalker
-Current balance $11.66

Sidewalker takes ownership stake in GM...

...along with every other taxpayer in the U.S.! I have been dreading this day for some time. The day that is when someone I don't know, acting on information I'm not privy to, decided that I invest in General Motors. How come the "faceless few" never invests my funds in healthy companies?

I don't watch a lot of business news as I'm sure you're aware of if you have been a reader for some time, but I did come across this little gem on CNBC. One of the talking heads said "There is a silver lining to the GM chapter 11 bankruptcy, they are the number one car and truck seller in the U.S.". Lets think about this oral buffoonery for a second. If loss per unit sale is an irrelevance let me go on record as saying, you pick the product and Sidewalker Enterprises will be the number one seller of said product in the U.S., with the "doesn't matter what you lose" provision in place. And to think CNBC is a major source of business news for the majority of the Nation.

I don't like to rant but I could not keep a lid on this one. No money found since the last post, some money lost to Detroit though...

-Luke Sidewalker
-Current balance $10.15

$165 Million, who cares really?

I had a good day today, three pennies and a rare quarter, all logged on my cashtrail map to the right. I was feeling particularly happy about bagging my 28 cents. Happy that was until I came across the headlines, and dug further into the AIG bailout.

Long story short AIG (AIG.N) came back for more bailout funds from the Treasury (so I guess consequently Goldman will have another good quarter), they were given another $30 Billion. For those of you keeping score at home that's a total of $182 Billion so far. Actually that is not totally accurate, this time they only got $29.835 Billion because the government held back $165 Million to offset the outrageous bonus payments last month. Well that showed them didn't it? I can't see them paying out anymore taxpayer funded bonuses when the Government takes such heavy handed punitive action such as this! My 28 cents kind of shriveled in my pocket as I was reading the article.

-Luke Sidewalker
-Current balance $7.80

GM CEO Wagoner fired!

Can you believe that! I had a little rant about everyone driving too much on Saturday (see below), then first thing Monday morning the CEO of the biggest car manufacturer GM (otherwise known as Gimme Money) gets fired, by none other than the President of the United States himself Mr. Obama. In my memory I have never seen the CEO of a private company get fired by a President -in this country at least-, this is not a political blog, which is just as well, because my mind is still wrestling with the rights and/or wrongs of that action! Still it's good to know that President Obama is clearly an avid follower my blog, Mr. President the "followers" section is to the lower right of this post feel free to sign up.

Meanwhile Mr. Wagoner has got some time on his hands, and being a former fat cat exec without a current revenue stream, may I be so bold as to suggest you get out there on the sidewalks of America and start picking the cash up. The walk will do you good and I'm sure the cash wouldn't be unwelcome at this juncture...

On a side note, 11 cents found today, locations on map.

-Luke Sidewalker
-Current Balance $6.51