“It all gets down the management and management philosophy. We’re a fairly conservative lot up here in the upper Midwest and we didn’t do any subprime lending and we have the ability to get into the derivatives markets and put on swaps and callers and caps and credit default swaps and just chose not to do it, really chose a Warren Buffett mentality—if we don’t understand it, we’re not going to jump into it. And so we’ve avoided all those pitfalls. That’s not to say that we’re completely immune to everything, certainly we’ve bought some mortgage-backed securities and we’re working through some of those issues, but nothing that would cause us to be concerned.”
Of course, it comes down to management, too. Something that I think many businesses and cities and states have basically just failed to attend that portion of class when they were going to school.
For example, the State of New Jersey is having fiscal problems. A State that charges people to drive on highways and has the highest property taxes in the country, I think.
The more money you give them, the magicians make it disappear.
Then you have a state like ND who is doing it right. I guess it can be done if you have the right people handling it.
