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This Instead For America?

An August 7, 2011 article published in Business Insider described what leaders in business and government could do to boost spirit in the aftermath of the Great Recession.

Business leaders could focus on fundamental values by pricing products and services fairly and competitively and by bringing value to consumers, the author of the article suggested more than five years ago. Elected leaders in government could "focus on doing the peoples' work...In real terms, rather than just paying lip service to addressing important human needs," and by debating issues "through constructive discussion, without all the made-for-media, mostly negative sound bites."

A year later the Montgomery Advertiser published an opinion piece about banking and Wall Street written by the same author. In this August 3, 2012 guest article, the author suggested that perhaps the most hated industry in the post-Great Recession era was "in the best position to renew hope and prosperity." By getting back to the real business of banking, big banks and Wall Street firms could channel "financial resources and financial expertise in support of commerce and enterprise."

He recalled in the article that banks helped build the nation "by lending money to fund the growth of major industries and the aspirations of small business entrepreneurs...The current situation the banking industry finds itself in is a microcosm of a much bigger problem that is having a profound impact on public perception of business, government and institutions. There is an erosion of faith in the ability of leaders in business and government to bring value to society," he noted more than four years ago in the article.

Then in the April 1, 2013 edition of American Banker, the same author wrote in a guest column: "Human enterprise is powered by financial resources and expertise, the high-octane fuel that helps people achieve their goals. As maudlin as this may sound, banks truly can help people in all walks of life accomplish what they set out to do...When the business of banking helps create, generate and sustain enterprise."

This year on Minnesota radio AM 1280, the author discussed one of his most recent articles entitled What Homeowner Associations Can Teach Governments About Spending. "People in government should take field trips to well-run homeowner associations," the author suggested. "To experience fiscal responsibility first hand. To see how leaders in some homeowner associations -- HOAs -- are actually spending public money prudently and efficiently." By "public money" he was referring to money homeowners pay in dues to fund associations, comparing HOA dues to the money governments collect from taxpayers to fund national and municipal governments.

"Governments are bigger than HOAs, of course, but when you come right down to it, financial management is financial management...Especially when you're managing everyone's money like it's your own money," he noted in the article.

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