Cautious Optimism

I just read a post on MSN that causes me to be cautiously optimistic. In the post it describes President Obama's desire to reposition much of the bailout strategy to community banks and small businesses. I think that would represent an excellent move.

I run a small business and work with many others. While I have seen many of the large financial institutions benefit from the bailout and in fairness pay back much if not all of the bail out money I can't say I have seen enormous quantities of the money "trickle down" to small businesses or lenders loosen up and provide loans to help refuel a real recovery.

As a "little guy" while I am pleased to see the stock market creeping back up I am not quite ready to declare the recession over. I live in a world of intimacy. I deal with my clients one on one. I see them continue to struggle. The community I reside in still has high unemployment and relatively low affordability, the ability for people to buy a home relative to their income. There is no grand strategy to deal with this issue in our local economy that I have seen.

I am not going to blame all of where we are on the "big banks" and the Administration. I have felt and still feel that the recession represented and continues to provide an opportunity for community banks and credit unions to step up and play a bigger role in their communities and how people see them. I have been pretty underwhelmed by the innovation and risk taking I have seen to date.

I hope that if the President is successful in this new direction smaller banks and credit unions "invest" in their communities rather than follow the example of the mega banks. At least in theory we are part of these communities. I am a big believer in the concept of think globally, but act locally.

So I will be curious to see what happens. For those in the "community" banking world if these funds come through it will be our opportunity and responsibility to step up. It has been easy to hide behind the excuse that we didn't benefit from the first round, but what will we do with our turn at bat if we get it?