DEAR MR. Greenspan: Jean von Briesen appreciates all your efforts, but she will not be helping the economy much anytime soon.

You keep saying you're cutting interest rates to get people to spend more, but Jean is spending less. Each time rates drop, Jean and the other people who live on bank savings, bonds and other rate-sensitive investments have less financial wherewithal, not more.

You thought you were doing the country a big favor by reducing the key Federal Reserve interest rate to 1.25 percent.

Well, lower rates are great for people with good jobs who can qualify for car loans and mortgages.

But Jean, who's 64, has retired from her job at a Baltimore car-repair shop. She drives a '92 Buick with 140,000 miles on the log and has neither the mind nor the money to replace it anytime soon. Good thing her son-in-law is handy under the hood.

She lives with her daughter and son-in-law and their children in an attractive brick rancher in Baltimore County with an American flag flying over the garage. They used the proceeds from the sale of Jean's house in the city to help pay for it.

It's a nice situation, but Jean is not swimming in cash from the interest-rate reductions.

Her savings account is down to $700. She lives on about $1,000 a month in pension and disability income; a lung condition requires her to be hooked up to an oxygen tank, even when driving. Much of her income goes toward a medical insurance policy, drugs, co-pays and deductibles.

She has investments of less than $30,000 -- a couple of annuities, a certificate of deposit and an income mutual fund.

A big portion of the cash earned by those funds is determined by short-term interest rates Short-term interest rates are at your command, Mr. Greenspan, and you have not been doing Jean any favors.

She likes to eat out every now and then. She likes to buy Christmas presents for her family.

But she doesn't want to tap into her nest egg. And the income from her investments is a trickle. So she has cut back on what was already a frugal budget.

That's bad news for the grandkids. And for the economy.

"I'm not going to be as generous as I have been in the past" for the holidays, she said a few days ago in her tidy living room. "Can't afford it. ... The way I look at it, the only ones that get helped [by lower rates] are those that have big bucks."

You see, Mr. Greenspan, your low-rate strategy works fine for car buyers, homebuyers and other borrowers, but it's poison for many lenders. And while she may not think of herself that way, Jean von Briesen is a lender, and so are millions like her.

Bank savings, money-market funds, Treasury notes and municipal and corporate bonds are all forms of loans, more or less.

These investments have always been the choice of seniors and other conservative savers who want to preserve their principal and know what their income will be.

But lately, safe Treasury securities and insured bank savings have also been wildly popular with stock-market refugees of all ages, and this trend has boosted the portion of Americans being hurt by lower rates.

For instance, bank deposits have boomed as stocks have plunged. Two weeks ago, U.S. banks and thrifts were sitting on $2.8 trillion in savings deposits, according to the Federal Reserve. That's an increase of nearly 50 percent in two years.

Nearly $3 trillion, sitting around in banks. Earning 1 percent or so. No wonder Kmart is in bankruptcy proceedings.

Despite Americans' love affair with consumer debt, which continues to rise, we are still primarily a nation of lenders, not borrowers. (This refers only to consumers, not the federal government, which is deeply in hock and which skews the national balance sheet.)

Morgan Stanley economist Stephen Roach notes that, last year, U.S. households collected about $1.1 trillion in interest income. That's nearly double the $600 billion or so that U.S. households paid in interest expense.

"In other words," Roach writes, "household sector lenders have nearly twice the exposure as borrowers to the vicissitudes of the interest-rate cycle."

And it's the household lenders like Jean von Briesen who are getting socked by rock-bottom rates.

The idea behind Greenspan's rate cuts is that they'll reduce expenses for the already indebted and encourage them and everybody else to take on more debt, buy new things and stimulate the economy.

But there's another side of the coin. Come to think of it, Mr. Greenspan, maybe Jean von Briesen doesn't appreciate your efforts.