How we all contributed to create our Credit Crisis!

Crisis of Credit-Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0zEXdDO5JU

Crisis of Credit-Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhDkZjKBEw&feature=related

These two YouTube videos are very well illustrate how Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan's lowering of the Treasury rate to 1% (to strengthen our economy post the dot.com bust and 911) caused a run on cheap money by the banks, eager to lend for a higher profit margin. Investors who wanted more than the 1% Treasury Rate of return created complex Credit Derivatives. The resulting demand for these high profit instruments led to the creation of easier mortgages, generating higher risk, and voila: our housing bubble was born, which in turn has frozen our financial system. We did this to ourselves, folks.

Within these clever exposes, no answers are offered. While I don't care how the illustration lumps mortgage brokers as the only purveyors of these loans (Countrywide and Washington Mutual invented the most egregious of these loans and sold in their own retail operations) the facts are clear that the instruments were created to meet demand for high profits based on a shell game. These animated charts are easy to understand, if painfully obvious. The end game is stopping the madness and greed. Unfortunately the pain of unwinding these complex games are impacting many small time investors in hedge funds, bank stocks and retirement accounts. We have yet to see the full effects once all these ticking time bombs go off.

What can we do? As entrepreneurs, we are the backbone, the creative first responders who can quickly adapt to meet the needs created by the consequences created on Wall Street. Meeting real needs creatively is a great long term investment in yourself, your business and our region. What are you doing about growing your business to meet new 'needs gaps'?