By Paris Goodnight
pgoodnight@salisburypost.com
Bill Greene said optimism will take over at some point and people will realize the current financial crisis is just paying for the good life we’ve all been part of for the past 20 years.
Wachovia Bank’s market president for Rowan-Salisbury said Thursday it’s like the person who went to Las Vegas and didn’t remember breaking out a credit card and running up a hefty tab ó until the bill came in. Now that it’s time to pay up, there’s no getting out of it.
On the other hand, he said though we’ll all feel some of the effects from mistakes made in other parts of the country, he remains bullish on our prospects. The local economy, including the Charlotte region, basically is healthy and diverse. Looking at David Murdock’s plans for Kannapolis and noting Charlotte hasn’t had the severe collapse in housing markets that other areas have, Greene said local folks just need to relax and take a deep breath until things calm down.
He said a lot of smart people have created a financial system that we’ve all benefited from over the years, but that system needs to go through corrections occasionally to keep it functioning properly, and this is one of those.
The collapse in some mortgage products paved the way for the latest troubles. “Americans should have the opportunity to obtain a house, but some took shortcuts and now we’re paying the piper,” he said. “Right or wrong, we’re intertwined in the system. We’ve bought into it.”
He looks at the current troubles from two sides: as a banker and as a consumer. As a banker, he said it’s part of his job to educate his customers on what’s going on and their best course of action. As a consumer, he has to look at what his own financial decisions will mean for him and his family. That part of the current situation doesn’t look all that cheery.
“It’s a mess. Our grandkids will look back at it and say how selfish we’ve been. We’ve had the good life,” he said.
As for the federal bailout, he said officials from the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and other agencies are doing the best they can to keep the system operating. “There’s no easy way to do it,” he noted.
He said local banks have been more conservative in their operations, and haven’t done any of the crazy things that have gotten other institutions into serious troubles. And he said even though the local economy is being hurt by the fallout from others’ mistakes, Salisbury and the Charlotte region are actually doing OK. He said he’s personally having a good year, and he said of 97 markets from Texas to Virginia, his portfolio is the fifth cleanest of the franchise.
He passed on a saying that you need three months of good news to really get things rolling, so he doesn’t see any quick turnaround.But once the presidential election is over and more details come out from the federal bailout, the situation should change for the better.