We are watching the meltdown of world financial markets this morning.  Dire expectations may not be low enough for what is coming ahead but there are opportunities for expanding your business in this cycle.  It is good to see some are optimistic about what the future holds but my own opinion is that years of distrust will take time to unwind.

We are living through the byproduct of fifteen years of dishonesty in the markets.  CBS ran an excellent story last  night on their fabled show 60 minutes.  The story showed how we turned a bad situation into a global calamity through the use of financial derivatives.  What we see in the end is probably going to be a lot worse than what we have already seen.  The 3rd quarter of 2008 was horrible for businesses across the nation with the financial system gummed up for much of the last three months.  Businesses range from car sales to steel manufacturers could not get letters of credit last quarter and this quarter it should only be worse.

The premium will be on quality and in transparency.  It is high time the foundations of our market return to honesty.  Without this fundamental shift we are far more likely to continue the slide downward and it may get to the point we cannot pull back up.