Financial Recovery?
September 15, 2009 -- On the Road to Financial Recovery? A message from Steve Tscherter, President and CEO of Lincoln Savings Bank. Is the economy poised for recovery or has it merely been propped up temporarily? Have Wall Street, Fannie, Freddie, et al been properly penalized, restructured, and regulated for the future benefit of the nation? Based on everything I read, the answer is “it’s up to you!” Based on everything I see, consumers have largely recognized the need to contract their liberal spending tendencies and begin to live within a budget. They have cut existing personal debt at an annual rate of ten percent this year. So, too, small business has reacted very quickly to trim production, cut expenses, and maintain low inventory levels to avoid tying up too much capital and time in inventories. From everything I read and from the sense I get, as a community banker, Wall Street is poised to go merrily on its way as though nothing ever happened – unless we ride congress enough to assure they do not get that opportunity. Their company bonus structures are so heavily slanted toward short-term profit motivation that their executives will soon find alternate ways of milking investors and our economy of every dollar we honestly make until the government will be needed to bail them out again! These same villains have reaped millions in unconscionable bonuses and perks even as we bailed them out! There is such an incestuous fraternity among the Wall Street oligopoly firms our government, and Too-Big-to-Fail corporate America that unless we end the thought of any company being too big to fail and unless we properly regulate those quasi-governmental agencies, I believe we are destined to repeat this debacle at a much higher cost! It might not be mortgage derivatives, oil futures, or precious metal commodities which become the new focus of the taxpayer-revitalized Wall Street barons. Maybe it will be carbon credits . . . a theory I have heard about recently! The government is considering legislation which would likely lead to wild speculation in this enterprise much as speculation in world oil, home mortgage derivatives, and precious commodities caused the excessive profits for companies dealing in same in recent years, all at our expense! I believe now, more than ever, it is up to us as voters and taxpayers to sound off to our Washington legislators until they get it right! We need to hold them accountable for the good of the public which elects them! They need to cut their expenses of serving us and devote more of their time to curing these ugly sores which are Wall Street and Too-Big-to-Fail corporate America! What do you think? |
|
