What is going on with the economy?

Dr. Tim Koch and Mike Ayotte, a community bank president from Morganton, NC, were at Coker College on Monday afternoon giving their assessment of how we got to where we are in our current economic woes. The event was sponsored by a community bank based in Hartsville, Heritage Community Bank as a community service. It is too bad we did not have more community members and others there because this is one of the most dynamic presentations I have seen in quite some time. The two presenters have obviously shared the platform previously and they had complementary styles even when they had opinions that did not mesh. Dr. Koch is the Chair of the Finance Department at the University of South Carolina. He came to the presentation from an academic/research perspective. Mr. Ayotte approached the subject from the perspective of a banker who has been successful during these stressful time and who is not wanting what he considers an incompetent government trying to run his business.

I am writing about this presentation in this Community Thinking blog because it was a community service provided by Heritage that in my opinion was a tremendous service. Also, there was a very strong message coming from the speakers about the importance of Community banks and that was an interesting perspective. It was not all that long ago that community banks were one of the major funders of community-building projects.

This was an interesting presentation and just for starters, what role do you think a company called Goldman Sachs plays in the current bailout tactics?