A good idea from 'Gus'

One of the biggest complaints about newspapers is often that we only print the bad news.

Actually, we make quite an effort to tell the positive stories in our readership area whenever possible. Of course, we depend on our readers for a number of those “good story” tips. When someone is doing something good, let us know. And please, if you can let us know ahead of time, all the better.

This week we featured a story with Gage County Sheriff Millard “Gus” Gustafson and his plans to bring “Shop with a Cop” to the area.

“Shop with a Cop” is an outstanding program that I’ve been fortunate enough to witness in other town’s I’ve lived in. You can’t fully appreciate the program until you’ve seen the joy in young children’s eyes just days before Christmas as they load gifts for themselves and their family members into a shopping cart.

Oftentimes, the children chosen for the program come from households that would otherwise not have gifts on Christmas morning. While the typical kid is excited to get a new toy, it’s been my experience that they are even more fulfilled to purchase and wrap a present for their mother or father.

An added bonus is that the program teaches young children that the police are good people, but make no mistake, this program is about leaving smiles on children’s faces.

After Gustafson explained the program, it became reality when each member of the Gage County Board of Supervisors made a small personal donation.

Now Gustafson is asking for the public’s help.

Donations of any size are welcome.

You can drop off donations at the Gage County Sheriff’s Office at 612 Lincoln St., Beatrice. If you don’t have a way to drop your donation off, call the Sheriff’s office at 223-5222 and they’ll come to your home to pick the money up.

Gustafson is hoping to help at least eight children this Christmas, one from each of the county’s school districts. He is aiming at spending approximately $100 per child.

No matter what shape the economy is in, there’s one thing that’s always a good investment, children — our future.

•••

The government’s $700 billion financial industry bailout was passed Friday.

If you’re like me, trying to grasp what you could buy with $700 billion is nearly impossible.

The Washington Post ran an interesting article giving some perspective to that amount recently.

According to that article, there are about 300 million men, women, and children currently living in the United States, so the $700 billion bailout is equal to roughly $2,300 per person.

The bailout is equal to about 12 times the net worth of Bill Gates.

Titanic, one of the highest-grossing movies of all time, earned $1.8 billion at the box office, “so James Cameron would have to make roughly 381 Titanic-sized blockbusters to settle Wall Street's debts.”

Invading the Netherlands is a possibility. According to Reuters, that country’s GDP was roughly $700 billion last year. For comparison, $700 billion is about twice the GDP of Egypt or five times that of Pakistan.

When you take a seven and put 11 zeros behind it, people are bound to be left scratching their heads thinking about the possibilities.

You could buy 10 million well-equipped Cadillac Escalades ($70,000 each) with the bailout money.

The new Yankee Stadium cost just $1.6 billion and the entire Yankee team is valued at only $1.2 billion, pocket change when you’re talking about $700 billion.

Perhaps the scariest thing about the bailout is that all sides agree $700 billion is not enough to fix the problem, but only offer a short-term solution.

I guess it’s true, you can’t expect to get much for a dollar these days, or even 700 billion of them.