Editor’s Note: SFCU’s not collapsing. Jon “didn’t know we had a joke issue.” Luckily (for you), I have no qualms about publicly embarrassing my bloggers, so it’s staying up. But don’t worry - your PennCash is safe.

First Club Wizzards. Then Bear Sterns. Now the front page of the DP announces yet another corporate meltdown in this same academic year: the Student Federal Credit Union, Penn’s student-run campus bank, is facing “imminent bankruptcy due to heavy losses.” PNC has already offered to buy them out for $2 a share.

Usually, this kind of thing wouldn’t bother me. I’m not really a finance kind of guy; my idea of “smart saving” is my tin can of loose change that I expect to eventually accumulate millions. (So far: $10.73.) But I had a significant portion of my savings in an SFCU account, and now that money might be gone forever. Never has it been more apparent to me that you can’t spell SFCU without “F-U.”

What really irks me about his collapse, though, is that SFCU is run primarily by Wharton students.

Those working in the investment division decided long ago to buy significant stock in Bear Sterns — which I can’t really blame them for, because I understand the market about as much as they understand human compassion. But aren’t these kids trained to dominate the economic world? We in the college joke about the vapid Wharton existence: no good literature, no philosophical discussion, not even the occasional essay assignment. Now their wallets are just as empty.

What I think I’ll miss most about the SFCU, however, is that personal touch. Like how in their eyes, I was more than an account number: I was also a credit card number and even a PennCard number. Or how I’d get a rambling voicemail every month asking me about questionable charges made on my credit card. Then I’d get to call them back — explaining that I did in fact buy that Spring Break-themed anthropological video and that no, it was not for me. We might even talk about the weather. You clearly just can’t teach that kind of intimacy.

So this weekend, raise your glass to SFCU and toast the latest victim of our current financial crisis. And if you worked at SFCU, I’ll miss you. Love, #1249837492.

Tags: human compassion, piggy bank, SFCU

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 2:16 pm and is filed under Penn. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.