NQ(ON aUrz KAjLUHowAW MrG
Women's money
for women's needs
By ANDREA SACHS
MOST PEOPLE suport their life styles with an
array of credit devices, including charge
cards, loans, time payments, and mortgages, with
barely a second thought. In this "credit society",
however, women, already handicapped financ-
ially by job and wage discrimination, are fur-
ther hampered by credit discrimination.
A variety of myths regarding the financial hab-
its of American women impair their ability to
establish credit, despte statistics which dis-
prove these misconceptions.
As the co-manager of the Ann Arbor branch
of the Feminist Federal Credit Union, 1 have
spoken with many women who have experienced
complete frustration in their attempts to estab-
lish their own credit ratings.
Although 50 per cent of all American families
receive 40 per cent or more of their income
from women, women's incomes are usually not
considered in family credit ratings. Women find
that they cannot obtain charge cards in their
own names, although they are making consider-
able salaries, or that male co-signers are re-
quired in most credit arrangements.
OFTEN, THESE FACTS are discovered by
women who have just been divorced, or who have
attempted to become financialy independent for
the first time. And the facts are disturbing..
The Feminist Federal Credit Union was estab-
lished to help rectify the inequality of sexist
credit policies. Begun by two women in Detroit,
Valerie Klaetke and Joanne Parrent, the Credit
Union has grown to almost 1,200 members, and
has offices; in Detroit, Ann Arbor, Flint and
Kalamazoo.
Like other credit unions, Feminist Federal gives
members the option of saving and/or tcking out
loans, if they qualify. Credit unions by definition
involve a common bond among the membership,
which in this case is feminism, and provide a
non-profit alternative to banks.
Membership requires a fifty cent fee, an inil-
itial $5 minimum deposit, and membership in a
feminist organization. Many members choose
to jon the Michigan Women's Liberation Coalition
through the Credit Union, or to join N.O.W. (Na-
tional Organization for Women).
THE ONLY QUALIFICATION for loans is the
ability and the willingness to repay. As for
men - they are permitted to join under the
same membership conditions. Accounts are in-
sured up to $20,000.
The Detroit Branch of the Feminist Federal
Credit Union has been operating since August,
while the Ann Arbor women, Susan Elliott, Mary
Musielewicz, Terry Beuer, Jane Rothstein, Debbie
Wood, and I have been running the branch office
since November.
Interest in the Detroit area has been wide-
spread; Valerie and Joanne have appeared on
various television programs, including- "Haney's
People," "AM Detroit"; "Detroit Today,' and
"June Brown's Detroit."*
And the idea seems to be one whose time
has come, since feminist credit unions are open-
ing up in Harrisburg, Pa., Pittsburgh, New Haven
and San Francisco.
The office, located at 225 E. Liberty, is open
on Mondays and Wednesdays, 12-5 p.m. and 5-8
p.m. As the brochure says, it's a "first in her-
story."
THE
Michigan Daily
Edited and monaged by Students at the
University of Michigan
Wednesday, June 26, 1974
News Phone: 764-0552
The Nuclear Blues
0NCE AGAIN, in the madcap world of international
politics, our blackest satire and darkest fears have
proved to be more accurate in predicting the future than
all the data banks in all the computers run by all the
experts.
Tom Lehrer (remember "So long, Mom, I'm off to
drop the bomb"?) and the little old ladies from SANE in
their orthonedic shoes carrying "Ban the Bomb" picket
signv were. in reztroenect. neither doomsters or crackpots.
But then. nobody wants to pay attention to scary
predictions of the future, not when there's beer to be
drunk and cars to be tootled around. So now all God's
children got the Bomb.
Well, not exactly the Bomb, just peaceful nuclear
capabiilty, like India for example. Then again, "peaceful
purposes" has been the alibi all along. Tell it to Hiro-
shima, and all the Pacific islands littered with radioactive
debris.
BUT THERE'S NO need to play the bleeding heart about
unknown people in far-away places. Right here in the
great state of Michigan, the weather has been altered by
nuclear power plants: fishers in the Great Lakes don't
know where to look for fish, or what species they'll find,
or whether the catch will be poisoned by the ring of
nuclear reactors spaced at 20 mile intervals around the
lakes: and vacationing families have a new game to play
on the roads: it's called Which-Truck-Is-Hauling-Radio-
active-Waste.
Perhaps those of us who grew up in the shadow of
Nagasaki and Hiroshima, with lots of Strontium 90 in
our bones and teeth, are a bit too fatalistic and blase
about the pros ects of being blown away with the planet.
Energy planning and landt use must become more of a
personal concern and less of an intellectual construct for
each of us. Maybe it's not too late to take the shiny toys
away from nationalistic weirdos and gadget junkies.
-MARNIE HEYN
Sprin, Staff
t1
.
, o
Aip
'It's a bird!' 'it's a plane! 'No!It's Super Kissinger!'
WEBSTER AT THE BAT
erbification runs amok
GORDON ATtCHESON ...
JEFF DAY
CHERYL PIATE.
JUDY BUSKiON
JEFF SORENSEN
BARBARA CORNELL.
JANET HARSHSMAN
ANDREA LILLY ...
STEPHEN IHERH .
DAVmD WHTtI5GJ
TOM GO'rTLIEB
-KAREN KASMAUSKI ...
REBECCA WARNER
Eeditor
MARNIE HEYN
Editoriai Director
KEN FINX
Arts Editor
.... ... Night Editor
.Ni..... Night Editor
....... Night Editor
... . . ... Night Editor
.Night Editor
...Asst. Night Editor
.Ass't. Night Editor
.".... .........Asot. Night Editor
.. ... . . .. ..Asst. Night Editor
. ...........Ass-L.Night Editor
.Photographer
........ .... Photographer
By DICK WEST
WASHINGTON (UPI) - The impact of the
Watergate tapes can be measured in many
ways, one being an increase in nounal verbi-
fication.
People see in the transcripts how President
Nixon and his aides kept converting nouns into
verbs, and the next thing you know they are
talking that themselves. -
The favorite White House verbification involves
the noun "stone wall," as when the President told
John Mitchell "I want you to stonewall it."
It may be argued that since "stonewall" al-
ready existed in verb form the President and his
men were not verbifying, or forming -v e r b s
themselves. But that is a weak argument.
Lexicographers only recognize "stonewall!" as
a verb in its cricket and pprliamentary contexts.
In cricket, it means to play entirely on the de-
fensive. In parliamentary terminology, it means
about the same thing as "filibuster."
IT IS CLEAR from the transcripts that the'
White House crowd was using it in another con-
text; i.e., to stand firm like a stone wall, the
way Stonewall Jackson stood at Bull Run.
In any event, it is catching on.
As I was leaving a cocktail party on a recent
evening, I commented that the large group still
clustered around the shrimp dip was a tribute
to the hostess' hospitality.
' I' think they are going to hardcore it," she
said.
ANOTHER CLEAR-CUT case of verbification
turned up the other day in a conversation I over-
heard on a Capitol elevator, apparently between
two lobbyists.
One was telling the other that the only way to
get his point across to congressmen was to
"blackboard it."
Had Nixon and his aides been able to crystal-
ball it, I doubt they would have set such store
by stonewalling the Watergate case.
' In retrospect it appears a better course might
have been to cleanbreast it.
MARC PLDMAN
Sports Editor
CLARKE COGSDILL .......... . Contributing Sports Editor
GEORGE HASINGS .. . .........,. .. EecutieSports Editor
JOBS KATLER ..... . . . . Assogiate Sports Editor
ROGER ROSSnTER .......... , .Managing Sports. Editor