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Jim Blasingame

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Archives for September 2018

What caused the 2008 Financial Crisis and could it happen again?

September 23, 2018 by Jim Blasingame

This week marks the 10th anniversary of one of the most dramatic series of events in human history, when raw, unmitigated greed was allowed to leverage itself, virtually unchecked, to a disastrous end. I’m talking about the Financial Crisis of 2008.

On January 6, nine months before the collapse, part of my 2008 Predictions included this: “There will not be a national crisis of mortgage foreclosures.” 

As noted above, there was a financial crisis that year. A devastating one. But my prediction was correct, because unlike what you may have heard, that crisis was not caused by mortgage foreclosures, sub-prime or otherwise.

The Financial Crisis of 2008 was caused by how Wall Street banks packaged and sold bundles of home mortgages – called tranches – as securities. Creating these securities wasn’t the problem. Mortgage-backed securities have long been an essential funding source of the home-ownership pillar of the American dream. This crisis was caused by that unmitigated greed.

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Filed Under: Banking, National and Global Economy

Can you deliver the authenticity customers seek?

September 16, 2018 by Jim Blasingame

Adam Smith, the father of modern economics and author of The Wealth of Nations (1776), identified writing as one of the three most important inventions of mankind – the other two being money and economic tables.

More than two centuries later, the Internet has powered the written word to levels unimagined only a generation ago, let alone during Smith’s era. Indeed, it is the driving force behind a handy new-media maxim, “Content is King.”

Today we’re consumers of many kinds of online content, including streaming audio and video. But even in the face of such multi-media majesty as iTunes, YouTube, and various social media platforms, most of the kingly content is still in the graphic form so highly regarded by Smith.

So what does all of this mean for small business owners? It’s simple: In an era when content is king, if you want to connect with customers competitively – and stay connected – you have to produce more written words than ever before. But not just any words – authentic words.

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Filed Under: Marketing / Branding / Advertising, The Age of the Customer

Breaking news! Life is short: Enjoy every sandwich

September 9, 2018 by Jim Blasingame

In a former life, I sometimes counseled small business owners who were going through difficult times in their businesses. The circumstances would be so desperate and the prognosis so dire that the person on whom the business’s buck stopped would be close to being unable to function.

Having experienced such a state of despair myself in the past, and calling upon what I’ve learned about perspective and what really matters in life, I would begin the visit with, “How are your children?”

“What?!” they always asked, incredulously.

When I repeated the question, they would invariably respond, “They’re fine. I’m about to lose my business. Why are you asking me about my family?”

To which I would reply, “Does anything else REALLY matter?”

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Filed Under: Work-Life / Balance

Why not an official day for small business owners

September 3, 2018 by Jim Blasingame

Labor Day began as an idea in the mind of a 19th century labor leader — some say Matthew Maguire, others say Peter McGuire — who cared greatly for a very important segment of the marketplace, its workers. 

Regardless of paternity, such a day was first celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, when members of the CLU took an unpaid day off to demonstrate solidarity and, of course, have picnics. And ever since 1884, when President Grover Cleveland’s signature designated the first Monday in September as Labor Day, it’s been an official federal holiday.

In 1898, Samuel Gompers, then head of the American Federation of Labor, called Labor Day, “the day for which the toilers in past centuries looked forward, when their rights and their wrongs would be discussed … that the workers of our day may not only lay down their tools of labor for a holiday, but upon which they may touch shoulders in marching phalanx and feel the stronger for it.”

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Filed Under: Entrepreneurship

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