{"id":393,"date":"2011-01-11T11:30:25","date_gmt":"2011-01-11T18:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/privatemoneysource.com\/blog\/?p=393"},"modified":"2011-01-11T11:30:25","modified_gmt":"2011-01-11T18:30:25","slug":"an-ireloquent-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/privatemoneysource.com\/blog\/?p=393","title":{"rendered":"An ireloquent post"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clay Sparkman<\/em><\/p>\n

A friend of mine likes to make up words.\u00a0 He comes up with some pretty good ones.\u00a0 A recent invention of his\u2014ireloquent\u2014strikes me as particularly utilitarian.\u00a0 It is useful in those situations where someone is going on and on about something in the most eloquent way, but in fact has provided a response that is completely irrelevant to the matter at hand.\u00a0 You know what I\u2019m talking about and who\u2014don\u2019t you?<\/p>\n

And thus for your reading pleasure today, I provide you with a completely ireloquent post:<\/p>\n

If I haven\u2019t posted so much lately (and I assure you that I haven\u2019t), it is because I am on my annual pilgrimage to Chile.\u00a0 I won\u2019t say that my primary consideration in choosing a spouse was that she be from a beautiful country in the southern hemisphere where it is 80 degrees and sunny whenever it is cold and rainy in Oregon\u2014and yet \u2026 well let\u2019s say it worked out that way.<\/p>\n

So each year when it gets really nasty in Oregon (December\/January), we come down (our family of three, which includes my five year old son) to visit our beloved family here in Chile (who fuss over us constantly catering to our every need), and we bask in the golden goodness of Chile for 1-2 months before packing our things up again and schlepping our way back home up to Oregon.\u00a0 I won\u2019t go on and on about how nice it is to spend your Christmas eve sipping cocktails at poolside and all that, mostly because so far as I know all of my readers are from the northern hemisphere and I don\u2019t want to make my readers cranky.\u00a0 (Still \u2026 golden sun, light breeze, birds singing everywhere \u2026 NUFF SAID.)<\/p>\n

Really I just wanted to share some thoughts about different perspectives on the New Year as we move into 2011.\u00a0 2010 was tough for so many of us up north.\u00a0 We struggled to hang on and waited for things to get better \u2026 and waited and waited.\u00a0 But I must say that Chile had a 2010 that in some ways makes ours in the USA look like child\u2019s play.<\/p>\n

First of all, they elected a new president\u2014Sebastian Pinera\u2014the first president representing the conservative right since Pinochet stepped aside (well sort of; that is another story) to make room for Aylwin in 1990.\u00a0 (When you think about it, that is a pretty good name for a presidential candidate.\u00a0 It sounds quite a bit like \u201cI\u2019ll win.\u201d)\u00a0 Now this change was not necessarily a bad thing for Chile, but it was–at the very least–a stressful transition for a nation that had just spent the past 20 years recovering from the iron fisted reign of Augusto Pinochet.<\/p>\n

Before the new president could even be sworn in, the country was devastated by a horrible earthquake and flooded by massive tsunami waves, leaving many dead, injured, homeless, and without basic food and supplies.<\/p>\n

As bad as it was, it could have been a lot worse.\u00a0 The various governmental and non-governmental agencies really stepped up to save lives and get basic infrastructure back in place quickly.<\/p>\n

And then just when the country was beginning to pull itself back together somewhat from the earthquake, and as if that trauma hadn\u2019t been enough for the nation to bear, a mining accident in the northern part of the country left 33 miners trapped underground, lost and waiting for rescue.\u00a0 (Of course if you don\u2019t know about that story, then it is likely that you were also living underground at the time.)<\/p>\n

It took more than two weeks, but through a series of drillings the miners were located, and it was determined that they were all alive and in reasonable condition.\u00a0 That was the good news.\u00a0 The bad news was that rescuers estimated that the miners might not be back up top even in time for Christmas.\u00a0 Need I say, that is a long time to hangout a half-mile below the surface of the earth even if you know the rescuers are on their way?<\/p>\n

In September, Chile celebrated its bicentennial.\u00a0 This was bitter-sweet, as you can imagine, as the entire nation (actually the entire world) was waiting, hoping, and praying for these 33 to men to get our alive.\u00a0 Chile is very proud country, and I can tell you that during my 20 year love affair with this nation, I have never seen it so united as it was at that point in time.\u00a0 The entire nation was breathing it seemed with one collective breath.<\/p>\n

In some of the most stunning press coverage I have ever witnessed, after 69 days underground the first miner was pulled to the surface, and stepped out of the specially designed capsule into the arms of a nation.\u00a0 My wife and my son and I were all watching on CNN at this moment, and my mother-in-law was on long-distance from Chile, and I am not ashamed to say that at that moment I sobbed like a baby.\u00a0 Rather sooner than expected, every single miner and every single rescuer came out alive and well.\u00a0 Amazing!\u00a0 Pinera\u2019s approval rating jumped some 20 points (and I say deservedly so).\u00a0 Vivan los mineros, viva Chile!<\/p>\n

What a year was 2010 for Chile!\u00a0 We all celebrated on New Year\u2019s Eve together and made many toasts for a better year for Chile in 2011.\u00a0 Needless to say, I was horrified when a live report on CNN international on the afternoon of January 2nd<\/sup>, reported an earthquake registering 7.1 in the Temuco region of southern Chile.\u00a0 How could this be\u2014only just 2 days into the New Year?\u00a0 As it turned out, it was a bit of a false alarm.\u00a0 The quake was ultimately downgraded and seems to have done very little damage.<\/p>\n

And so, what exactly is my point, you say?\u00a0 My point is that this post has nothing to do with private money.\u00a0 It is completely and utterly ireloquent.<\/p>\n

Oh yes, and one last thing:\u00a0 May we all avoid calamities in 2011 (great and small, north and south), and may we prosper immensely in our private money investments<\/em>!\u00a0 (Sorry, I couldn\u2019t help myself.)<\/p>\n

— Clay (sparkman@lendicom.com, 503-476-2909 or 800-971-1858)<\/p>\n

Clay is Vice President of Fairfield Financial, a primary source for private money loans since 1964.\u00a0 Fairfield works with a broad range of private money investors, in a broker capacity, finding, underwriting, presenting, closing, servicing, and when necessary, assisting in the workout of difficult loans.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clay Sparkman A friend of mine likes to make up words.\u00a0 He comes up with some pretty good ones.\u00a0 A recent invention of his\u2014ireloquent\u2014strikes me as particularly utilitarian.\u00a0 It is useful in those situations where someone is going on and on about something in the most eloquent way, but in fact has provided a response […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[34,40,41,42,43,49,50,51,53,54,58,59,60],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/privatemoneysource.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/privatemoneysource.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/privatemoneysource.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/privatemoneysource.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/privatemoneysource.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/privatemoneysource.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/privatemoneysource.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/privatemoneysource.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/privatemoneysource.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}